
NATION 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Shelf ..U'.^-E-g 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE 



Rise and Progress 



or 



Civilization in the Hairy Nation, 



A COMPARATIVE TOPICAL REVIEW OF THE STA(iES OP PROGRESS 
IN THE BRIEF HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY, IOWA. 



By henry C. ETHELL. 



BLOOMFIELD, IOWA: 

H. C. ethell; 

REPUBLICAN STEAM PRINT; 

1883. 







Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1881^, by 

HENliY C. ETIIEI.L, 
in the oiTiee of the Librarian of Congress, at VVasliington. 



K^^^Hl 



To 
T. O. WALKER, 

The Editor 

Who Published My First Production, 

Twelve Years Ago, 

This, 

MY FIRST BOOK, 

Is Inscribed in Grateful Remembrance 

By 
THE AUTHOR. 



IV 



PREFACE. 

This is a book, and nothing else. There are 
no advertisements in it. It has not been eon- 
structed or modified to please or displease any- 
bod3\ I think the title fairly describes the book : 
that it is what it professes to be — a picture of civ- 
ilization, in its rise and in the various stages of 
the short period of its progress, in Davis count}', 
Iowa, otherwise "the Hairy Nation." The plan 
of reviewing each topic, from the beginning to 
the present, separately, seemed to me the best, 
as affording the best hope of holding the interest 
of the reader to the end. 

The history of the settlement of the United 
States may be divided into three periods, as dis- 
tinct in manner as in time. The first covers the 
settlement of the Atlantic coast and a fringe 
west of the Alleghanies. During this period 
the white race was forcinir an entrance into the 



wilderness, b}' rude, unaided strength ; the 
greater part of the continent lying before, an un- 
known and dreaded countr}'. The second pe- 
riod covers the settlement of the country from 
the Ohio to the Missouri ; when the white inhab- 
itants of the United States were secure in their 
mastery of the continent, and were steadil}' 
pushing the Indians and the wolves before them, 
mile by mile ; and the railroads and other new 
and powerful agents of civilization were closely 
following, and supporting their march. The 
third period, the one now in progress, covers the 
settlement of the open country west of the Mis- 
souri ; where the railroads have gone in front, 
and where a great proportion of the settlers 
have gone at one leap from the heart of Amer- 
ican civilization, carrying with them most of its 
aids and comforts and some of even its luxuries. 
The settlement of this region belongs to the 
second of these periods. It was, as we may sa}', 
the edge of the woods, where the pushing pi- 
oneer paused and shivered awhile before he 
plunged into the wide and windy prairies. The 
pioneers of the first period are dead. The set- 
tlers of the new countries of to-day know no 
experience like that of the settlers of this coun- 



VI 



try. The settlement of this region has no coun- 
terpart in the memory of persons now living. A 
review of its progress may then be worthy of 
the attention of the present inhabitants. Since 
the work is not confined to the narration of local 
incidents, it will also serve as a picture of the 
early history of a great region settled under like 
conditions. 

The author is a child of the Hairy Nation. 
His life spans the greater portion of its history. 
The rest is supplied by the stories which his 
wide-open ears drank in around the wide, open 
fireplace where he toasted his baby shins and 
his mother toasted his johnny-cake. Most of the 
changes he describes took place under his ob- 
servation. I think these changes must impress 
such a person more than any other. He had 
never known any other country. The woods 
that skirted his native prairie were the boundary 
of the world to him. The continual changes 
wrought before his eyes in the face of this little 
world filled his mind with constant wonder. As 
he grows older, and learns something of the 
great world outside, the world of his childhood 
dwindles to a patch ; and that patch, like the 
patch on his boyhood's pantaloons, is nothing 



Vll 



like the original. The contemplation fills his 
mind with sadness. The later sojourners know 
but little of these changes. Even the pioneer 
had known another country, and perhaps a dif- 
ferent life. His coming into the countr}' was 
his own premeditated act. He came into it 
with his eyes open. The changes have been in 
a measure the work of his own hand. They af- 
fect him, but not as the}' affect his children. 

This little book is not designed to take the 
place of a history ; yet wherever I could, with- 
out departing from the plan of the book or 
swelling its size too much, bring out a historical 
point that seemed to have been neglected, I have 
tried to do so. Where I have made specific 
statements of facts, I have taken as much pains 
as I could afford to secure accuracy. The fol- 
lowing authorities have been consulted in the 
preparation of the work : The Bible, the Amer- 
ican Cyclopaedia, United States history, "Our 
Wild Indians," Col. Moore's Centennial History 
of Davis County, C. C. Nourse's Centennial Ad- 
dress, the recent patent "History of Davis Coun- 
ty," stray copies of the Annals of Iowa, old 
newspapers, the traditions of pioneers and a good 
memory. H. C. E. 



\111 



LIST OF TOPICS. 

Period of Discovery . 9 

Our Predecessors. , .^ . . , 13 

The Dawn of Civilization. ............ 24 

The Hairy Nation .... 28 

The Capital of the Nation. . . . . . . . . . ... 33 

Building ... ^6 

Dress 50 

Home and Social Life 63 

Courtship and Marriage 72 

Religion 79 

Education 82 

Agriculture 93 

Roads 1 01 

Business 115 

The Nation in War 1 29 

Politics 137 

The Press 141 

Apologies . 1 44 



9 




PERIOD OF DISCOVERY. 



'HE first hundred pages or so of all the 
histories of the United States which I 
have read seem to have been printed from the 
same set of stereotype plates. When I was a 
small boy, I studied the history of my country 
at school. As I recollect the course of the 
earlier part of the narrative, it seems to run 
thus:^ — First comes the quotation from Genesis: 
'' In the beginning God created the heaven and 
the earth.'"* Here the historian dismisses Heaven, 
as being a country which has never established 
direct diplomatic relations with the United States; 
and henceforth his narration is confined exclusive- 
ly to atlairs of Earth. The second chapter closes 
with the incident of Noah and his family going 
to the mountains for their health, to escape the 
malaria which prevailed in the valleys, and the 
unusual circumstance of their going 'by boat. 



lO 



The third tells how the children oi^ men made <i 
house-raising and built a tower; and what a con- 
i^usion the}^ made with their tongues — a habit 
wiiieh the children of men have to this day. In 
the fourth chapter, the historian speculates wisely 
concerning the lost tribes of Israel. The tifth 
chapter, by another step, brings us to Olaf, the 
Dane; and the sixth to Columbus. When the 
narrator reaches Columbus, he gets down to real, 
solid business. By the time the Revolutionar}' 
period was reached, the term was ended; and 
when the next term opened I had to go into a 
class with a beginner, who had another kind of 
history, and then we went over the same thing 
again. 

I do not know that an}'bodv ever disco\'ered 
the Hairy Nation. The early records do not 
disclose the name of the discoverer. The period 
of occupation is limited; but the mind of a true 
and loyal citizen of the Nation cannot conceive 
of a time when it was not here, or when its 
existence was not known. Its location was most 
probably determined by mathematical rules, after 
the manner of the discovery of Neptune. Its 
existence was necessar} to complete the harmon}' 
of nature. 



11 



In very early times, the Hairy N>ition was 
tributary to France, though there is no account 
of the collection of tribute within its borders in 
those times. France traded it to Spain, and in 
the Inst }'ear of the last century Spain returned 
it to France. In its earlier years, the go^'ernment 
of the United States was always wanting to get 
more land; latterl}', it has seemed to have more 
than its people needed, and has been ceding large 
tracts of it to the railroad kings. When Thomas 
Jefferson was President of the United States, Mr. 
Bonaparte, Consul of France, having a lot of 
wild land out this wa}- on which he was not able 
to pay taxes, and wishing to be on good terms 
with our go\'ernment, proposed to deed to Mr. 
Jefferson the whole of the Hairy Nation, with 
all the circumjacent territory, extending from 
the Gulf of Mexico to the country claimed b}- 
Great Britain, and from the Mississippi Ri\er to 
the Pacific Ocean ; and Mr. Jefferson paid him 
fifteen million dollars for it. 

About twenty years ago, an early immigrant 
from Missouri, then an honored member of the 
Baptist church, related at the table of one of his 
brethren, in my hearing, a narrati\'e substantially 
as follows: An earl}' explorer from Missouri, on 



12 

his return from this region, described it as a land 
of perpetual spring ; the streams by which it 
was watered (or rather milked) flowed with a 
mixture of milk and honey; on their banks grew" 
dumpling trees, whereon ripe dumplings grew at 
all seasons of the year; and all that the happy 
sojourner had to do to support his existence was 
to shake the dumplings into the prepared "dip'' 
in the streams below, and eat. Those halcyon 
days do not belong to the historic period of the 
Nation. The dweller within its borders in these 
times eats his bread in the sweat of his face and 
in the syrup of sorghum and in the gravy of the 
hoir, like other men. 



i:> 



OUR PREDECESSORS. 



rZ^ 



(M^PVEN the most accurate accounts of the 
^^t' Indian tribes are much confused. Ever 
since the whites began to deal with them, the 
tribes have been continually shifting their loca- 
tions. We presume ^it was so in a smaller degree 
before; and we are apt to think these changes 
have been greater among the tribes inhabiting 
our own portion of the country than among 
those inhabiting the portions settled earlier and 
more thoroughly treated by historians. 

The central and larger portion of the territory 
now embraced within the limits of the State of 
Iowa was occupied at an early da}' by the Indian 
tribe from which the state derived its name, an 
Algonquin tribe of secondary rank, allied to the 
Sacs. But these were not the real aborigines 
of Iowa. They came from somewhere east of 
the Mississippi. Even the Pawnees, who pre- 



H 

ceded them, and the Pottawattomies, who were 
nearly parallel with them in the retreat before 
the ad\-ance of civilization, came from locations 
much to the east of us. When our present ter- 
ritory tirst became known as an organized part 
oi the domain of the ITnited States, the explored 
portions of it seem to have been occupied prin- 
cipall}' by the Winnebagoes and Sioux : the 
former in the east, and the latter in the north; 
the lowas and Pottawattomies having been 
crowded farther to the west. These two tribes 
had formerly occupied the same relative positions 
bordering on the lakes. The early white settlers 
of southern and eastern Iowa found the ground 
occupied b}' the confederated tribes of Sacs and 
Foxes. The Winnebagoes had been pushed 
more to the north, and the Sioux were still stub- 
bornly contesting the northern ground in their 
retreat to the west. The Pottawattomies oc- 
cupied the southwestern part of Iowa. 

The Sacs and Foxes were of the great Algon- 
quin famil}' of tribes, which in early da}'s was 
seated on both sides of the eastern part of the 
great lake chain. These two tribes appear to 
have been united in the latter part of the last 
century. They were separate when the whites 



15 

iirst kne\v them. They were not among the 
most powerful tribes in numbers ; but in theii- 
nr.tural state they were very warHke and enter- 
prising. The Foxes were one of the few tribes 
that had engaged in wars with the French. vSo 
long as these tribes remained in the neighbor- 
hood of the British, the}' were under the in- 
liuence of the latter. They w^ere the allies of 
the British in the w^ar of 1812; and thev were 
generall}' hostile to the people of the United 
States, even after the nominal cessation of hos- 
tilities between our government and Great Brit- 
ain, so long as they remained within the reach 
of British influence. The influence of the Girt3\s 
also extended to them, and incited them to hos- 
tility. These tribes took part in Pontiac's war 
and in his siege of Detroit, in 1763. Under the 
lead of Black Hawk, the}' furnished a part of 
the British and Indian force which attacked Ma- 
jor Croghan at Fort Stephenson, in 18 13. 

The Indians w^ith w^iom the earl}' settlers of 
Davis count}' were acquainted were nearly all of 
the Sac tribe. The principal band of the Foxes, 
under Appanoose, was just to the north, and 
some individuals of that band w^ere seen here. 
Black Haw^k was a Sac. He did not inherit the 



t6 



hiofh rank he held in the confederacy as a war- 
rior. He was the son of the "medicine chief/' 
or chief magician, of his tribe. A recent writer 
says that Black Hawk held the same position. 
It is certain that when his father was killed, he 
rescued the '^nedicine'"' bag, which was nothing- 
like a pill-bag, and carried it through the tight. 
But few men on this continent ever conducted 
warlike operations covering so great an extent 
of territor}' and embracing so many different 
enterprises as those of Black Hawk. They 
extended from Lakes Huron and Erie and the 
upper Mississippi to the Meramec and the Char- 
iton in Missouri, and ransfcd throu^'h the states 
of Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois and 
Missouri. Besides the soldiers and citizens of 
the United States, he warred against a dozen 
Indian tribes, some of whom scarcely knew each 
other, and of whom the Sioux in the north and 
the Osages and Cherokees in the south were the 
extremes. Although he was the foremost war- 
rior of the Sacs and Foxes for many years, and 
led not only their warriors but those of other 
tribes in the "Black Hawk war," it does not 
appear that he ever was the head chief of either 
tribe. Before Black Hawk's death, Keokuk was 



^7 



the head chief of the Sacs, and Appanoose of 
the Foxes. This ma}^ be accounted for by these 
circumstances : It seems that the head war chief 
and the head council chief of the same tribe 
were often different persons, independent in their 
separate functions. Keokuk, who was about 
fifteen years younger than Black Hawk, was, in 
his younger days, a dashing and skillful warrior. 
He won his rank parti}' by his success in war;^ 
and partly by his subtle power as an orator 
and councillor. After he had established his 
ascendency in the council, he seems to have re- 
lied mainly upon his influence there. At the 
time of the Black Hawk war, he understood the 
real situation of his people better than Black 
Hawk did. Besides this, Keokuk had established 
his ascendency as a councillor; Black Hawk had 
established his as a warrior. Under such cir- 
cumstances, it would be just as natural for Ke- 
okuk as for a white politician to endeavor to 
restrain the people from going to war. Black 
Hawk lived on Rock River, Keokuk on Iowa 
River. The great body of the two tribes lived 
on the other side. Black Hawk urged the people 
to go to war. Keokuk tried to persuade them 
to cross over to his side. There was a division. 



i8 



Black Hawk led the majorit}' of the warriors 
into the war; the rest remained with Keokuk on 
this side of the Mississippi. It seems that the 
majority of the Foxes foUowed Black Hawk, 
though their chief, Appanoose, opposed the war; 
while the majority of the Sacs stayed with Ke- 
okuk. Most of the younger Sacs went to war; 
most of the older Foxes sta}'ed at home. After 
Black Hawk's defeat, when the war spirit had 
been crushed out, of course Keokuk's influence 
was paramount. The policy of the government 
may have contributed somewhat to this result. 
Black Hawk died within the present limits of 
Davis county, beyond the Des Moines, in 1838; 
and was buried there according to the customs 
of his people. Although the legs of civilized 
men have been exposed to the ceaseless swing of 
Time's relentless scythe for the period of more 
than forty years which compasses the histor}' of 
the Hairy Nation, the burial-place of this un- 
tutored savage still holds the proud preeminence 
of having received the mortal remains of the 
most distinguished man that ever found sepulture 
within its borders — shall I say the most distin- 
guished that ever had a residence there? This 
rude grave received, but could not hold the bones 



19 

of the chief. A white man stole them from their 
resting-phice, to serve the interests of science and 
civiHzation; and other white men, who interposed 
the arm of the hiw, at the soHcitation of the dead 
man's sons, to rob the thief of his pre}', instead 
of restoring- the bones to the claimants or to 
their original grave, transferred them from a 
doctor's closet to a museum! 

From seeing the name Sac in the new^spapers 
and geographies, people now commonly pro- 
nounce it Sack. Among the pioneers it was 
pronounced Sock. I am not versed in the Indian 
languages, and do not know where this form of 
the word originated. It is doubtless a modifica- 
tion, through the sound, of "Sauk,'"' which seems 
to have been the proper Indian name. The In- 
dians who were here called themselves ^'Sauk-dd/"* 
with a heavy accent and guttural pronunciation 
of the last syllable. The termination ''ee^' seems 
to have been an afhx with a magnifying power 
— in this case expressive of the greatness of the 
individual applying it to himself. If a white 
man meant to call himself "mashockee Saukee,'"* 
(big Indian), he would pronounce his own name 
mellifluousl}', thrusting his thumbs into the arm- 
holes of his vest and rising on tiptoe just as he 



20 

Uttered the last syllable. In the minds of the 
Saukees, a Saukee was the perfeetion of ereation. 
Even their brethren, the Foxes, with whom the}- 
were associated in all their affairs, were a little 
inferior. If there was anything doubtful in their 
history, or any transaction upon which a white 
man might look with disapproval, that had been 
done by an irresponsible Fox. 

The Saukees who were personally known b}' 
the pioneers of the Hairy Nation are described 
as a well-formed people, about the same average 
size as the whites ; straighter, more handsomel}' 
proportioned, but not so brawny. They seemed 
perhaps, on the average, a trifle taller, because 
they were straighter. They were generally of 
a light, agreeable copper color. Their features 
were more reofular and less harsh than the fea- 
tures of the Indian are now generally described. 
The later descriptions of the Indians mostly rep- 
resent the plains and Pacific coast Indians. The 
Saukees sprang from a diflerent stock, and had 
never experienced the extreme squalor that 
entered into the life of some of the western In- 
dians. Sickly persons were rarely seen among 
them. Sick Indians, like the truly good, die ear- 
ly. The men were habitually chary of speech. 



21 



but fluent and animated when occasion prompt- 
ed. The squaws were as talkatixe and curious 
as their white sisters of to-day. In action, the 
men were deliberate and dignified, but prompt 
and decisive. The Indian's motto was: ''Never 
do to-da}' what you can put oti' until to-morrow."" 
But when the time came when a thing must be 
done, he went at it and had done with it. Not 
with a tug and a sweat, as a white man would; 
but in the most direct manner of doing it that 
an Indian knew. The squaws were steadily 
industrious. 

This was a corner of the possessions of the 
Sacs and Foxes for the few years between the 
Black Hawk purchase and the extinguishment 
of their title to these lands, May ist, 1843. 
During that time, the Indians who frequented 
these parts had the w^hites for neighbors on two 
sides. The ''disputed strip'' on the south was 
claimed by both Iowa and Missouri, and the In- 
dians had a claim which was equivalent to Iowa's 
claim. On this account, this strip was occupied 
by both whites and Indians prior to the date 
named. The early settlers on this strip had the 
best opportunity to form a general acquaintance 
with the Indians. Here, on the North Fabius 



22 



.'ind its branches, Keokuk and his band made 
their winter camp, even before the sale of their 
lands. They continued to return to these camp- 
ing grounds until the fall of 1845. When the} 
settled at their winter camping ground, they cut 
down a great number of lin and slippery elm 
saplings, for their ponies to browse upon through 
the winter. The next winter, these saplings 
served them for fuel. In the spring, when the 
sap of the sugju* tree rose, they broke camp and 
removed to Grand River, to make sugar. The 
summer was spent mostly in roaming about. 

At the time Keokuk finally left these parts, 
he was, according to history, about sixty-tive. 
The settlers who knew him say he did not look 
so old. They familiarly called him ''old K.'' 
He is described as a tall, portly man, dignified 
and rather surly in his bearing. He kept a half- 
breed (Saukee and French Canadian), a small, 
shrewd, sprightly man about forty, named Bat- 
teese, for an interpreter and secretary. Keokuk 
was a shrewd trader, even knowing what a dol- 
lar was worth; but it was beneath his dignity to 
parle}' and chaffer as a man must do in trading 
with white men. Batteese was his spokesman and 
agent in all business and personal intercourse 



with the whites, though e^'idently acting under 
Keokuk's directions. Keokuk was famous as an 
orator. He was one of the most distinguished 
orators who have ever honored the precincts of 
the Hairy Nation with their presence. Perhaps 
he was the most successful, since by his timely 
eloquence he stemmed the tide of a famous and 
admired warrior's influence, and rescued a great 
part of his tribe from that warrior's disastrous 
leadership — a task much more difficult than that 
of exciting men to do something to their hurt. 
Like many another man famous for talents that 
strongly enlist the emotions, Keokuk died the 
death of a drunkard. 

In the fall of 1845 ^^^^ ^^^ spring of 1846, 
the Sacs and Foxes were removed to Kansas. 
The body of the tribes is now settled on a res- 
ervation in the Indian Territory. The Musquau- 
kee band, an offshoot of the Saukee tribe, owns 
a small tract of land in Tama county, Iowa, and 
makes that its home, though individuals and 
small parties of the band roam about, making- 
visits to Western Iowa, and even to their breth- 
ren in the south. Including this band, the tribes 
now number something over one thousand per- 
sons. 



-H 




THE DAWN OF CIVILIZATION. 



|T^OM an official point of view, the dawn 
of civilization for the Hairy Nation at 
arge was the dawn of the morning of the hrst 
day of Ma}', 1843. By the terms of a treaty 
made the year before, the Sacs and Foxes on 
that day resigned the title to their lands to the 
United States government. Here was the east- 
ern limit of their possessions. To speak with 
precision, the treaty took effect at the midnight 
previous ; and hundreds of white families were 
w^aiting on the border, ready to break over the 
line the moment that hour arrived, and secure 
the choicest tracts of land, without regard to the 
presence or the feelings of the former propri- 
etors. When the sun rose on that morning, the 
Indians prepared to leave a land which was no 
longer theirs, and where they were alread}' so 
rudely jostled b}' newcomers who had no better 



23 



individual title than their own. When their 
horses had been packed, and all was in readiness 
for the journey, it is said that the whole tribe, 
including even the bravest warriors, unanimously 
wept as they took a lingering farewell look at 
the beautiful grounds where many a time and 
oft they had hunted the bounding deer and 
brought the fierce ground-hog to bay, and upon 
the beloved streams upon whose banks their 
children and themselves had played, perhaps, for 
generations; and when their eyes were blinded 
with the welling tears, they withdrew them from 
the landscape, set their faces westward, and be- 
laboring their half-fed ponies into a start, took 
up their solemn march toward the setting sun, 
which at that time was supposed to set about 
the Grand River hills. It was a scene like that 
which the poet has so feelingly depicted as "The 
Last Sigh of the Moor.'^ Would that I were a 
poet! This story is true; for it is told in all the 
histories of the state, and in the histories of 
every county in this '^purchase.'' We talk of 
our love of country. Many a white famih' 
whose half-dozen children had all been born in 
these same beautiful regions, has loaded its 
household effects into a wagon, and with the 



26 



dog trudging along underneath and the cow tied 
behind, started lor Kansas, with no demonstra- 
tion of grief except a few tears at parting from 
''her people ; '' often cursing the land which had 
nourished them ; and leaving behind an unpaid 
bill for subscription to the local newspaper. Such 
is the ditierence between the Indian and the 
white man, betw^een barbarism and civiHzation. 
But there were settlers within the present 
limits o': Davis county six years earlier than 
this. The Black Hawk purchase, wdiich in- 
cluded Van Buren count}', took in with it a 
narrow strip of the present territory of Davis 
county, four miles wide at the southern bound- 
ary and coming to a point at the north. This 
was opened to settlement in 1837. ^ wider 
strip through the whole southern part of the 
county was disputed between Iowa and Mis- 
souri. The purchase was bounded by the limits 
of Iowa. The claim of the Sacs and Foxes 
was involved with the claim of our state. The 
squatters who settled on the disputed strip held 
their claims under the shadow of Missouri's 
assumed title ; although, inconsistently, most of 
them claimed to be citizens of Iowa. Although 
they were reall}' trespassers on Indian land, the 



27 

government troops would not dri\e them off so 
long as the title was disputed and in doubt. 
Settlements were made on this strip as early as 
1839. It being more extensive than the eastern 
strip, the hea^'iest of the earh' settlements of 
the county were on the south. This disputed 
strip included the original '^Hair}' Nation." In 
view of the facts just stated, it ma}' be said that 
tlje sun of civilization rose upon the southeast 
corner of the Hairy Nation, apparentl}^ frorn 
some point opposite in Scotland count}^ Mis- 
souri. From this point, at its first appearance 
above the horizon, it sent out two unequal 
streaks of light, one along the southern, and the 
other along the eastern border of the Nation ; 
until, by the fulfillment of tloe treat}- with Ke- 
okuk, it surmounted the last barrier, and flooded 
the whole Nation with its benio'nant ra^'s. 



28 




THE HAIRY NATION. 



I HE name "Hairy Nation^' was originaHy 
applied to a small district in Wyacondah 
township, about the forks of Wyacondah Creek* 
or "the Waucondaw," as the early settlers called 
it. The origin of the name is accounted for in 
various ways. One account is that in the moun^ 
tainous regions of Tennessee there was a settle- 
ment known as "the hairy nation,-^ from the 
rough, unkempt appearance of the men ; and 
that some Tennessee immigrants transferred the 
name to this locality, because of the similar ap- 
pearance of the men. Another account is that 
when a settler from Indiana went to his first 
house-raising, he was struck by the general rude 
and shaggy appearance of the men, and re* 
marked to them : "You are the hairiest set of 
men I ever saw;'^ a remark which caused the 
tribe to adopt the name "Hairy Nation.'' A 



29 

third account is that one of those migratory 
Hoosier families that used to move to a new 
countr}' one year, and back to Indiana the naxt^ 
gave such an account^ on their hrst return, of 
the grisly appearance of the inhabitants of the 
district in question that their acquaintances gave 
it the name of the ''Hairy Nation."*^ The cer^ 
taint y of the matter is that the name w^as given 
on account of the rough, unkempt appearance 
and rude manners of the men. 

Wolf-skin caps, buckskin hunting-shirts and 
other semi-barbaric articles of dress were fre- 
quently worn by the ruder men of the Hairy 
Nation. Wolf-chasing was a favorite pastime* 
The pugilistic code of honor was universally 
recognized. Every man, large or small, was 
supposed to consider himself the best man, phys- 
ically, that creation had ever produced, and to 
be ready at all times to resent the direct asser* 
tion of any superior claim. If a man were re* 
strained by a wholesome modesty from asserting 
his claim, his more powerful and more ambitious 
friends avoided in his presence any pointed asser- 
tion of superiority that would call upon him to 
tight; but a man who aspired to be a champion 
must never allow any other man to boast of 



physical superiority in his presence without tig'ht- 
ing\ whether he had any other cause of quarrel 
with the other man or not. Puo^ilistic bouts 
were not contested according to the rules of the 
London Prize Ring or of the Marquis of Queens- 
berry, but according to the iTiles of the Hairy 
Nation. The tight generally took place in the 
presence of spectators, and the}' generall}' formed 
a circle around the contestants. Sometimes a 
rino- was drawn on the o-round. No o:loves were 
used. The men might have their seconds, but 
there was no bottle-holding and no sponging of 
the battered contestants between rounds. The 
seconds did not examine their man, at the close 
of a round, and determine whether they should 
throw up the sponge. It was very important to 
determine accurately the precise point of time 
when the losing man was thoroughl}' whipped. 
In order that this point might be arrived at with 
the utmost nicety, the victim himself had the 
first right to declare it, which he did b}' uttering 
the simple word "enough.''^ The abbreviation 
" ^nough" was allowable in extremit}'. Prompt- 
ness in uttering this magic word sometimes saved 
a man's e3'eballs. In a light under the code, a 
man must ha\'e no weapon in his hands. Ari}^ 



use of them was fair until the beaten man had 
cried ''enough;'^ he must not be struek after 
that. Old Joe Carter was the king of the IlairN' 
Nation. He kept a paek of hounds, and was 
the leading wolf^chaser and champion fighter. 
Several men disputed his title to the champion- 
ship, but alwa}'s with disastrous results. He 
was a man of only medium size, but compactl}' 
built, strong and wiry. He was a hard hitter, 
and had the courage, tenacity and cruelty of a 
buil-dog. He had no tender scruples about 
using an}' means, under the code, of disabling 
his antagonist. Gouging the eyes was his favor"^ 
ite method. 

The name -Hairy Nation^^ soon came to be 
applied to the whole township of Wj'acondah. 
As it became known abroad, the undiscrimina^ 
ting outer barbarians tinally applied it to the 
county; and so it is used to-day. The inhabit^ 
ants of the original Hairy Nation have kept 
pace with those of the surrounding regions in 
the march of .civilization. They occupy about 
the same relative position now that the}' oc* 
cupied forty years ago. As the wolf disappeared, 
the fox and raccoon took his place; and the chase 
o: these animals is still occasionally indul<?ed in. 



32 

The wild turkey is no longer plentiful enough 
for general sport, and there is a law against 
shooting him at eertain seasons of the year, or 
catching him in pens. So his domesticated 
brother is plucked from his perch and tied to a 
stake, to afford exercise for the bold hunter's 
marksmanlike skill. There is no law against 
that. 

The county of Davis was organized March 
1st, 1844. It was named in honor of Garret 
Davis, member of Congress from Kentucky, 
because he had introduced a bill in Congress to 
pay the Iowa militia for their services in the 
boundary war. Cheap honor! The bill did not 
pass. The first county election was held April 
1st, to choose county officers. The officers 
chosen were : Samuel W. McAtee, Wm. D. 
Evans, Abram Weaver, Commissioners ; Miles 
Tatlock, Probate Judge ; Calvin Taylor, Treas- 
urer ; Franklin Street, Commissioners' Clerk ; 
Israel Kister, Recorder ; Gabriel S. Lockman, 
Surveyor ; Greenbury Willis, Assessor ; For- 
tunatus C. Humble, Sheriff; Wm. McCormick, 
Coroner ; Geo. Titus, Sealer of Weights and 
Measures. Willis immediately resigned, and 
Samuel Evans was appointed in his stead. 



33 




THE CAPITAL OF THE NATION. 

HEN the Hairy Nation threw open its 
doors to the home-seekers of the world, 
naturally the possession of real estate in the future 
capital became a prize much sought by adven- 
turers. Several parties had made locations near 
the geogi'aphical center, basing upon loose sur- 
\eys and favorable ground their expectations of 
securing the location of the county seat upon the 
site of their selection. In the winter preceding 
the organization of the county, the rivalry con- 
centrated upon two opposing sites : one where 
the town of Bloomtield now stands, and the 
other some distance northeast, across Fox River, 
in the edge of Perr}- township. Dr. J. J. Sel- 
man was in the Senate, and Andrew Leech in 
the lower House of the Territorial Legislature, 
which was in session that winter. Dr. Selman 
relates that a bill, introduced bv Mr. Leech, 



34 

locating- the county seat of Davis county* at 
Richmond, the northern site, having passed the 
House, came up in the Senate. He prevailed 
upon the Senate to lay it on the table. Petitions 
in behalf of both sites came pouring in. They 
kept coming until the number of petitioners for 
each site exceeded the number of voters in the 
count}'. The lists had been sw^elled by cutting 
the names from all the old road petitions that 
could be found. When the proper time came, 
Selman introduced a bill providing that the lo- 
cation of the count}' seat should be determined 
by the vote of the people of the county at the 
spring election ; and it passed. The location of 
the county seat was an issue in the election of 
County Commissioners. The direct vote on this 
question resulted in a majority of betw^een thirty 
and forty for the Bloomfield site. 

The Legislature had appointed Charles H. 
Price, of Van Buren count}', Thomas Wright, 
of Henry county, and John Brow^n, of Lee 
county, to locate and establish the seat of justice. 
On the 25th of April, 1844, these men met with 
the County Commissioners at the house of No- 
ble C. Barron, the only house on the town site, 
to ratify the choice of the electors. Each of the 



35 

County Commissioners had a different name h\ 
whieh he wished to designate the eapital. Me- 
Atee had chosen Jefferson ; Evans, Bloomtield ; 
and Weaver, Davis. The names were put into 
a hat, and the clerk drew^ from the hat the sHp 
containing the name of Bloomtield. And so the 
town has been called to this day; and will be, 
doubtless, until the cows shall come home, and 
time shall be no more. 



36 



BUILDING. 

The Lodge in the Wilderness. — The winter 
tent or house of the Saukee was not a mean 
structure. It was more artistic, more sightl}-, 
cleaner, and for general purposes more comfort- 
able than some of the habitations of the white 
settlers in the prairie regions. The framework 
was of small poles, set in a circle, which formed 
the circumference of the house, and crossed at 
the top. Over this was stretched a covering of 
mats. They were usually made of a kind of 
flags, but sometimes of the tine, strong inner 
bark of the lin or bass wood tree. The mats 
were tightly seamed together. For all such 
purposes a thread of well tanned buckskin, or of 
the sinews of deer, or of the same lin bark, was 
used. For their sewing the Saukee women used 
a bone needle of their own making. The mats 
were so closely woven that a house covered 



37 

with them could hardl}' be penetrated by wind 
or water. The houses were comfortable, even 
in cold or blustering weather. A small tire was 
built exactly in the center, so as to let the smoke 
escape through a small aperture at the top of 
the lodge, where the poles crossed. Around 
this tire sat the Indian men, when they were at 
home, making a stool of their feet. The outer 
space was usually carpeted. The carpeting was 
principally mats of the same material and con- 
struction as those with which the house was cov- 
ered. Sometimes, to help out, they used their 
"meskimetahs,*" or flat satchels, made of dressed 
skins. Such a house they called an ^'ekiop.'' 

The Log Cabin. — For many years after the 
first white men settled within the present domain 
of the Hairy Nation, the settlements were all in 
the timber. Of course the houses were all built 
of logs. That would be considered a great 
waste of material now. The material was plen- 
tiful enough then ; generall}' it was not the ab- 
solute property of the builder ; and that method 
of converting it to the required use was the onh' 
one suited to his facilities and conveniences. 

When a newcomer had taken a claim and de- 
cidq^l to put up a house on it, all his neighbors 



•^8 

came to help him build it. A neighbor was an\' 
man whom he or his new friends knew, and who 
^\'as near enough to be reached by an invitation. 
An invitation to a house-raising was something 
which no man could slight, and the occasion was 
l^iiled as a frolic. It gave the prospective house- 
liolder a chance to become acquainted with the 
old-timers, who had been in the country a year 
or two. The old settlers generally initiated the 
newcomer by relating the trials and hardships 
of their first experiences, and possibly added an 
account of some hard scrapes through which 
the}' had gone ''back w^here they came from.'' 
If he could match them, he was at once accepted 
as a promising citizen. 

Usually the house-builder had his logs cut and 
notched before the day of the raising, sometimes 
not. A man who was generall}- careless or un- 
skillful would show it in the selection of his ma- 
terials. Then men wx^re not building for poster- 
ity. The builder had no title to his land, and 
there w^as no certaint}' that a house would be 
wanted in that place ver}' long. Logs of oak, 
elm, lin and hickor}' would sometimes be put 
into the same house. The\- rotted unequall}', 
and some of them in a \cv\ short time. Most 



39 

of the early houses were built of round logs. 
Often the bark was not taken off. The next 
touch of art was to score the logs lightl}' on 
two opposite sides, and chip off a narrow strip. 
It was a great advance beyond this to hew the 
outside and inside of the logs. A neat hewer 
would make a sort of charcoal paint, pour it 
into a notch in a log, blacken a string with it, 
and strike a line to hew by. The spaces be- 
tween the logs were "chinked,'^ and daubed w^ith 
mud. If the house were built of round logs, it 
would generally be chinked with slivers or an}^ 
loose sticks. If it were of hewed logs, and 
more care was to be taken, the chinks would 
be split with soine nicety. In the year 1845, 
a hewed-log house, chinked with split sticks 
cut to even lengths and all laid with the same 
slant, and ''pointed" with lime, was as grand 
a monument of culture as a two-stor}' ba}' win- 
dow with a magnolia in the lower story is in 
the year 188^. 

The roof of the house was made of ri^'en 
boards, held dow^n by ''weight-poles." Large, 
straight, sound burr oak or white oak trees were 
often set apart for board-trees, and carefully pre- 
served for years, by a farmer who had hopes of 



40 

some da}' building a barn or another room to his 
liouse. The chimney was built outside the 
house. The base was a large square, built of 
large, tlat stones, or of logs, with a lining of 
stones. The stem of the chimne}' was a square, 
hollow tower, built of split sticks, with the inter- 
stices tilled and the inside plastered with clay. 
As the clay dried, cracked and fell out, the 
sticks frequently caught tire; and the family tire 
department turned out in full force, with gourds 
and buckets of water, to check the conflagra- 
tion. The chimneys of the early prairie houses 
were somt^times built of sod. The fireplace 
projected into the house, and was laid with 
large, flat stones. The house was usually 
floored with hewed puncheons, of oak, lin or 
ash. Sometimes the floor was of earth, beaten 
down with a maul. 

The house rarel}' had more than one room. 
I cannot trace the brush arbor for summer cook- 
ing back to the very earliest daysf The cook- 
ing was often done outdoors in summer. There 
were no stoves. Besides the house, there was a 
log smoke-house, a small log stable for a span of 
horses, a log pen to hold the fresh ashes, and a 
"gum'' (section oi a hollow log) or a clapboard 



41 

ash-hopper for leaching ashes for soap-making. 
These, with two or three rail pens for stock, and 
possibly a covered pen for corn, comprised the 
buildings. The angle formed by the chimney 
and the wall of the house was sometimes en- 
closed for a pig-pen. 

Sometimes a justice of the peace, or a man 
who aspired to set up a sort of baronial estate 
on extensive land claims, built a double cabin. 
This was two cabins, built ten or tifteen feet 
apart, and connected b}' extending one roof over 
both and over the intervening space. This space 
was called an entry. Luxurious people often 
paved the entry with flat stones. In other cases, 
a walk of hewed logs was laid between the 
doors of the two cabins, and another from the 
entry to the panel of fence prepared for a 
"getting-over-place.'^ This panel was always 
topped by a flat, sway-backed rail ; and care 
was taken in building it that all the cracks 
should be large enough to admit a good-sized 
human foot, encased in heavy shoes. 

Whenever it was possible, in the construction 
of an}^ of the buildings, hickor}' pins, solid or split 
and wedged, as their use required, were made 
to serve instead of nails, hinges, and latches. It 



42 

is almost needless to sa}' that all fencing was of 
rails. 

The Shed Kitchen. — After a few years, when 
two or three ten-acre additions had been made 
to the nucleus of the farm, and two or three 
ten-pound additions had been made to the nu- 
cleus of the family, the housewife began to say 
that she must have some place to cook. She 
was tired of cooking out of doors in summer, 
and of running over men's legs in winter, when 
she was in a hurry to lift the lid from the oven, 
to see if the bread were burning. So an ad- 
dition was built to the main house, in the shape 
of what is called in some parts of the countr}' a 
'4ean-to,'' called here a ''shed.'' It was a light 
frame, sided usuaWy with clapboards. The 
structure was low, and the roof formed a slight- 
1}' elevated tail to the main roof. The new 
houses built at this time were mostly built with 
this same loose-jointed attachment. About this 
time, also, the farmer began to build a similar 
shed upon the rear of his stable, to serve as a 
lying-in hospital and nursery for a cow or half a 
dozen ewes. 

At this time, the opening of farms on the 
prairie had become general. Each prairie farm- 



43 

er endeavored to secure a ten or twenty-acre 
tract in one of the heavily timbered regions. In 
the abundance of grass and the sparseness and 
smallness of farms which had been the rule 
hitherto, cattle had found no excuse to become 
breachy. Jumping into an enclosure had been 
like breaking into a prison. Now the nine-rail, 
staked-and-ridered fence came into vogue. Oc- 
casionally a farmer, impressed with the idea of 
economy in the use of timber, constructed the 
greatest of all abominations in fence-building, a 
fence composed of alternate panels of ten-foot 
and four-foot rails. Fitful experiments in the 
cultivation of hedges began as early as this. 

The Frame House. — When the steam saw- 
mill came in, the frame house became general. 
The prevailing style was still a two-room house, 
with the hip-shot roof. Native lumber was used 
throughout. The heavier frame-timbers were 
usually hewed, and well braced. Plastering 
soon came into use for the best room, but the 
kitchen was usually ceiled with lin or cotton- 
wood lumber. Chimneys began to be built of 
brick, inside the walls, and narrower. The 
crook-necked, smoking chimney was introduced 
into the country about this time. The shaving- 



44 

horse came in to supplement the froe, and build- 
ing-s were generally covered with shaved shin- 
gles. The word "barn^' became rooted in the 
dialect of the Hairy Nation in this era. Hith- 
erto, no kindred word but '^stable^^ had been 
needed. The more enterprising prairie farmers, 
tired of hauling rails, began to build plank fenc- 
es of native lumber. 

Many a bowed and decrepit citizen of the 
Nation yet looks back to this time with regret 
for the precious years of his prime wasted in the 
chimerical attempt to convert the abundant elm 
timber of the country into useful building mate- 
rial. For many years it was the favorite sheath- 
ing lumber for houses. For this purpose it was 
sawed very thin. Then it was leaned against a 
fence to season. After one sunn}' day, the hol- 
low of one broad plank would hold water enough 
for a washing. The next day the plank was 
turned, and warped back. On the day appoint- 
ed for rooting the house, the work began at sun- 
rise. Two men worked on the roof, and a bo}' 
was stationed to watch the lumber. Whenever 
he reported that a plank was warped back far 
enough to be nearly straight, it was seized and 
nailed fast. For extracting nails from a fence- 



45 

post, no machine has been Invented which can 
beat an elm plank. Six bits a hundred feet, or 
half the lumber, was the price of sawing in those 
days. The slabs went to feed the furnace. 

The (Pine Era.— The advent of railroads 
made pine lumber plentiful. The overworked 
farmer soon began to consider it cheaper to buy 
his lumber where he did his other trading, and 
haul it home, than to cut and load heavy logs, 
haul them to and from the mill, wait on the 
iniller^s convenience to saw them, and throw in 
the timber to boot. It was not long before the 
houses throughout, and most of the fences, were 
built of pine. The light balloon frame and the 
cottage roof became the prevailing style of arch- 
itecture. The tireplace had almost entirel}' giv- 
en way to the stove ; and the old-fashioned win- 
dow of twelve eight-by-ten panes was replaced 
by taller windows with larger glass. From this 
time forward, no farmer could hold a position of 
any prominence in his community unless he had 
a story-and-a-half pine cottage. If stock-raising- 
formed a principal part of his business, he must 
have a large frame barn; and if he occupied the 
very front rank, it must be a ''bank'' barn, paint- 
ed red. 



46 

The Court House Era. — I designate the brick 
and stone age of the Nation by the name of its 
proudest monument. Of course brick was used 
in house-buikling, in a small way, at an earh' 
day. There was here and there a dwelling- 
house built in whole or part of brick, even in 
the country, awa}' back almost to the tradition- 
ary aofes, when Martinis Hotel is said to have 
been built. Every few years a brick business 
house was built in Bloomtield, and one was built 
in Drakeville at a comparatively early day. 
The years 1874-5 and 188 1-2 were notable 
building eras. They have left the circuit of 
the public square of the town of Bloomtield 
almost solidly built up with substantial brick 
structures, of two or three stories, most of them 
having solid stone foundations and ornamental 
fronts. The numerous large dwelling-houses 
erected in these years have been built in a style 
in keeping with the business houses. The more 
thrivinof villaji'es and country communities have 
followed the lead of the capital. 

When the rains descend and the floods come 
and other things go wrong, the afflicted Bloom - 
fielder takes shelter in his pride in the architect- 
ure of his beloved town. When the Bloom- 



47 

field commercial traveler, who "goeth about like 
a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour,'"' 
returns ''from going to and fro in the earth and 
walking up and dow^n in it,'"* some anxious cit- 
izen always asks him if he finds any other tow^n 
so well built as Bloomfield ; and the truthful 
traveler always dutifully replies that in all this 
favored land the sun nowhere shines upon its 
like. 

From frequent participation in the ceremo- 
nies, every Mason and Odd Fellow in the vicin- 
ity of Bloomtield has learned by heart the ritual 
used in laying the corner-stone of a public build- 
ing. The copies of the local newspapers that 
have been deposited in the crypts of these stones 
would be sufficient to make bustles for half a 
dozen lady members of the roller-skating club. 
The two educational edifices in which our cit- 
izens feel so great and so just a pride were 
erected in the first of the building periods men- 
tioned before. 

In 1844, a two-story, hewed-log courthouse 
was built, at a cost of about four hundred dol- 
lars. This building served the purpose for seven 
years, and was then discarded. For tw^enty-sev- 
en }'ears after that the county rented rooms for 



48 

its offices and court sessions. A lo^^ jail was 
built in 1848, and was used until it was burned 
down by the attempt of a prisoner to burn him- 
self out, in 1876. 

After the disuse of the old log courthouse, 
live ditferent propositions for the building of a 
new one were submitted to the people : in 1861, 
for a building not to exceed $150,000 in cost ; 
in 1866, for a $24,000 building ; in 1872, for a 
tive-mill tax for three years ; in 1874, for a 
$25,000 building ; in 1875, for a building not to 
exceed $50,000 in cost. The natural aversion 
of the citizen to being taxed for the benefit of 
the public of which he is a part prevailed until 
the last submission. Then one of the costliest 
propositions was adopted, and executed in a time 
of the greatest monetar}' stringency our people 
have ever experienced ; and if there is an}^bod}' 
who still grumbles about it, he is proud to know 
that it was done. 

The erection of the courthouse was com- 
menced in the summer of 1877, and occupied 
about a year. The traveler from the Hair}' 
Nation tells ever}' willing listener abroad that 
we have ''the finest courthouse in the state, '^ or 
"one of the finest in the west.'' With its w^alls 



49 

of brick with ashler facing, mansard roof, tall 
tower, large and well furnished courtroom, 
room}' and convenient offices, tire-proof vaults, 
and all appointments in corresponding style, it is 
indeed an uncommonly line and substantial ed- 
ifice of its kind; and it was built so cheaply, and 
with so little of the usual waste and stealing, 
that the figures representing its cost afford no 
criterion by which the unfortunate outsider who 
has not been favored with a view of its fair pro- 
portions may estimate its worth. It is the pride 
of the Nation ; and almost every one of her 
citizens has at his tongue's end the sum of its 
cost, even to the odd cents. Including a jail 
underneath of which any county might well be 
proud, the clock and the statue of Justice above, 
a steam heating apparatus, and all other appur- 
tenances, the total cost was about $61,496.58. 
It is protected by a strong, but light and elegant 
iron fence, which cost about $2,500. 

The local reader may think that after reach- 
ing this climax the book ought to end here ; but 
however tedious and tasteless a narration may 
be after the description of its most interesting- 
object, the narrator must proceed with it con- 
scientiously to the end. 



:o 



DRESS. 

The (Buckskin ^Period. — No animal is so use- 
ful to us iis the deer was to the Indians who 
used to live here. They had learned the word 
''buckskin'^ from the whites, and everything 
pertaining to a deer they ealled ''buekee-skin.'"* 
They had an art of tanning deer skins whieh 
the whites have lost, without ha^'ing found an 
equal substitute. Buekskin was the ehief mate- 
rial of their dress. 

To begin at the bottom, both men and women 
wore the moceasin, a soleless shoe, made of 
buckskin, laeed, and coming above the ankle. 
If circumstances permitted, the moccasin was 
profusel}' and artisticall}' decorated with bead- 
work, in fanciiul and regular designs. This was 
the work of the women. The Indians had the 
extravagant love of personal ornamentation 
which distinguishes races and indi\'iduals whose 



51 

minds arc in a barbaric state. The Sacs wore 
no stockings. 

It may properly be said that the base of the 
man's dress was his breech-ciotli, which was all 
that its name implies. In summer this was 
made of cnlico, in winter of buckskin. The 
description of the minimum summer costume is 
now complete. Generally, and in winter always, 
the men wore leg'g'ins of buckskin, fitting the 
legs closely. The>' extended from the breech- 
cloth to the moccasin. Each leggin was seamed 
on the outside. The ends of line, short strips of 
buckskin were sewed into the seam, so as to 
form a frino-e down the whole leno^th of the les:- 
o^in. The ordinary lens^th of this frins^e was 
about an inch. The more st}'le the wearer 
could afford to put on, the longer the fringe. 
In most of the pictures of Indians, it appears 
to be about six inches long ; and in the pictures 
of scouts in the Indian tales, a foot long. It 
seems that each of the les^s^ins was constructed 
as an independent garment ; but that in most 
cases they were connected with the breech- 
cloth, forming with it a sort of pantaloons. 
When an Indian once got his pantaloons all on, 
he kept them on until it was time to get a new 



pair. There were three reasons for this : he 
had no chair to hang them on when he went to 
bed ; he wore no drawers ; and he would have 
thought it needless labor to put them off and on 
every day. 

The Saukee man wore a calico shirt, like a 
white man's shirt. It was not fastened behind. 
Out of doors (if the expression is a proper one 
in speaking of a people who had no doors,), in 
winter, he wore over all a heavy blanket, of the 
kind known at that time as the "Mackinaw 
blanket.'' It was not provided with any fasten- 
ing ; and it was a mystery to the white man by 
what dexterity he managed to keep it on, in 
whatever he might be engaged, or however his 
hands might be occupied. 

Tonsorial customs were lax among the Sauk- 
ees at this period. Some left the scalp lock in 
relief, pasted it up and wore feathers in it ; some 
cropped it so that it was barely distinguishable 
from the surrounding growth ; and some wore 
all the hair long. The Indian wore no hat. 

The woman's rights advocates may find cause 
to criticise this account of the Indian dress as an 
unwarrantable and unprecedented discrimination 
against, their sisters, in the apportionment of 



53 

space to the sexes. The Saukee women wore 
moccasins, shirts and blankets Hke those worn 
by the men. They did not wear the blanket so 
much as the men, because they sta3^ed at home 
more closely and labored more. Sometimes, 
when the}' went out, they wore a sort of hood. 
The hair was trained in a single pendent braid, 
tied at the end with a piece of ribbon ; green 
being the favorite color. It was naturally 
straight, and was kept smooth and glossy by 
the use of oil. No perfumed drug-store essen- 
ces were needed. Whenever, in cooking or 
dressing meat, the squaw's hands became too 
slippery with grease to be either dextrous or 
comfortable, she wiped them on her hair. A 
skirt was made by folding a piece of blue broad- 
cloth over a belt ; the width of the cloth allow- 
ing the skirt to fall to the ankle. A loose leg- 
gin of broadcloth, reaching above the knee and 
coming down over the top of the moccasin, 
completed the apparel of the squaw. 

The copper-colored dames had as little faith 
in the maxim, "Beaut}^ unadorned adorned the 
most," as their lily-white sisters of to-day. They 
embroidered their moccasins and other articles 
of their attire with colored beads. They wore 



54 

bracelets, commonly of brass, whenever the\' 
could obtain them in traffic with the whites. 
The}' wore rings in their ears. They did not 
pierce the ear with a slender needle, and adorn 
it with a tin}', sparkling drop, pendent from a 
golden thread. With a knife, they cut in the 
lobe of the ear a square hole large enough to 
admit any size or style of ring that might hap- 
pen to come into their possession. If the}' could 
obtain nothing lighter or more elegant, they in- 
serted a bar of lead in the hole, and bent it into 
a ring. Not a large bar, but often heav^' enough 
to stretch the ear to an unlovely length. 

The Jeans and Linsey ^Period. — The dress 
of the pioneers was made almost wholly of 
home-made materials. Their boots and shoes 
were obtained mostly at the store ; though the 
countr}' cobbler plied his trade for a while, in 
the intervals of his labor on the little farm. 
Occasionall}', the Indian moccasin encased a 
white man^s foot. The}' wx're mainl}' depend- 
ent upon traffic for their head-wear ; the man 
for his wool hat, and the woman for the mate- 
rials of her calico sun-bonnet or quilted hood. 
Now and then, howe^'er, a man w^ore a cap 
made of the skin of a wolf or raccoon. 



55 

Wool and tlax were the ehief materials from 
whieh the homespun eloth was made. Sheep 
were not even proportionally so numerous as 
they are now, and did not }ield so large a erop; 
but the wool was all worked at home. Near- 
ness to a earding-maehine was a great eonven- 
ienee. Even hand-cards wxre used to some ex- 
tent in the earliest days. The ''big wheeP' (for 
wool), the ''little wheel" (for flax), and the 
loom were among the most important articles of 
furniture ; and the loom w^as the most prom- 
inent. Almost every woman knew how to spin 
w^oolen }'arn, and most of them could spin flax 
thread and weave flannel and linsey. Weaving 
jeans was a somewhat rarer art. It was a more 
highly prized accomplishment then to be able to 
sit a loom-seat well than it is now to sit a piano- 
stool gracefull}', and went further to make a 
young lad}' eligible to matrimony. 

The outer garments of the fathers of the 
Hairy Nation were nearly always made of 
jeans. The prevailing colors were blue and a 
brownish-}'ellow ; though a grayish mixture, a 
combination of blue and white, was common. 
The brown did not predominate as it did in the 
interior of Missouri, where the bark of the gen- 



56 

nine butternut, or white walnut, could be used in 
coloring. The bark of the black walnut was the 
substitute here. The Sunday suit, if the individ- 
ual could afford a separate Sunda}' suit, was 
generally of blue jeans ; and the Sunday coat 
was nearly always a long frock. The everyda}' 
coat was generally a loose sack or blouse. A 
very common working garment was the ''wa'm- 
us," a blouse, with straps sewed fast at the side 
seams, and buttoned together at the middle of 
the back, forming- a half belt. The Virsrinia 
and Kentucky element, coming b}' way of Mis- 
souri and Southern Indiana, was the predom- 
inating one in our population at the date of the 
first general settlement. The elder and middle- 
aged men of this element nearly all wore pant- 
aloons with high, full waists, and long, slender 
legs. The pantaloons were held up by knit 
"gallowses," drawn as tight as a California 
cinche. For protection against the weather, 
perhaps, they were generally made double- 
breasted, the outer fold letting down in front, 
like a trap-door. This relic of the olden time 
may still be seen, in faithful likeness to its an- 
cient form, where here and there an aged rep- 
resentative of that sturdy race yet lingers on 



57 

the shores of time, alike unwilling to loose his 
hold on life or pantaloons. 

The small clothes of our fathers were almost 
exclusively w^oolen, A starched shirt was a 
rare sight among ..them, and it required a pecu- 
liar tact and firmness of character to wear one 
w^ithout incurring popular disfavor. There are 
men now living among us, some of them in 
prominent positions, who in their childhood wore 
nothing at all in summer except a long slip or 
gown, called a shirt, of tow linen ; possibly they 
wore occasionally their fathers' discarded hats. 
Men's summer suits were frequently made of 
linen, half flax and half tow\ 

The women made their dresses of flannel or 
linsey. A dress of seven-hundred linsey (seven 
hundred threads of warp to the yard), with a 
filling of clear, evenly-spun yarn, carefully wo- 
ven, and with a pleasing combination of colors, 
was a Sunday garment which the grandest 
dame might wear with pride. Summer dresses 
and aprons were sometimes ma?de of cotton 
cloth; the material being picked, carded, spun, 
woven, cut and sewed at home. A shawl was 
the principal wrap; though a narrow cape and a 
short circular cloak were common upper gar- 



58 

ments. Re\erence for the mothers of the Na- 
tion, together with a degree of ignorance of the 
subject, forbids me to descend to more minute 
particulars in the description of their attire. 

The Casinet and Calico ''Period. — In its in- 
fancy, the State of Iowa undertook, w^ith the aid 
of the general government, to pro\'ide for a sys- 
tem of slack-water na\igation on its principal 
interior river, the Des Moines. This enterprise 
w^rought a great re\-olution in the costume of 
the Hairy Nation. It resulted in the establish- 
ment of an extensive and prosperous milling 
industry on the Des Moines, wiiich was of more 
value to the people on this side than the na\'iga- 
tion of the river could ever ha\'e been. The 
farmers began to take their wool-crop to the 
woolen mills on the river. The women who 
still did some weaving would ha\'e their wool 
carded at these mills ; and in an^' case, the\' 
would have enough carded to make stocking- 
yarn. Sometimes the producer would hire the 
mill-owner to work up the wool into cloth. 
Generally, and especiall}' in later 3'ears, the\' ex- 
changed the wool for such cloth as the}' could 
select from the read3'-made stock in the mill 
store. 



' 59 

Meek's cloth, or the cloth manufactured by 
Meek Brothers, of Bonaparte, the proprietors of 
the leading mills on the Des Moines, became the 
staple article for general wear. It still main- 
tains a firm hold on the trade of an extensive 
section of country, and many sins have been 
committed by the retail merchant in its name. 
The commonest cloth for men's outer wear was 
a satinet, or ''casinet,'' as it was then generally 
called ; a thick, heavy, half-wool cloth, w^th 
w^earing qualities equal to buckskin. A bo>' 
might slide down hill in a pair of trousers made 
of it every da}' for a whole winter, and never 
touch bottom. Its color was a solid gray, of 
various shades. A ''broadcloth," usually black, 
was much used for men's finer suits. I well 
remember with what pride I donned ni}' first 
pair of pantaloons of light-gray, nappy casinet, 
very full in the seat and legs ; and what a stren- 
uous protest I put in when, at some time after 
that, my mother proposed to make me another 
pair of brown jeans breeches. My recollection 
is that she made the breeches, and that I wore 
them ; but I felt that the hand on the dial-plate of 
time had been turned back at least three cogs, 
and I listened for a break in the machinery. 



6cj 

The women wore flannel, Iinsev and other 
goods made at these mills ; but the caheo dress 
predominated for summer and Sunda\' wear. 
About this time, the mantilla had its run, and 
the Shaker bonnet eame into fashion. This w^as- 
the beginning of the erinoline era. The fem- 
inine superstructure, outstripping the architect- 
ural style of the period^ w^as erected on a bal- 
loon framework. Many a pious father, consid- 
ering that the female skirt, thus elevated, had 
too much the appearance of flying in the face of 
Providence, attempted by the extreme exercise 
of parental authority to keep the skeleton out of 
his closet; but his daughters searched the woods 
for slender grape\'ines, and the petticoats im- 
perceptibly expanded under his gaze until his 
will, if not his prejudice, was overcome. 

The Shoddy and (Delaine (Period. — Along 
with the other innovations introduced into our 
public and private economy by the war, came 
the general use of ready-made clothing !)}• men 
of all classes. Cash had become so abundant 
with the farmers that they spent it without re- 
serve for whatever they wanted that could be 
conveniently purchased. The rural districts 
were flooded with the shoddy clothing of the 



C>i 



period. In my rustic, 3'oiiLhful da3's, when a 
rustic 3'outh could tirst go awa}' from home with 
none of the home folks but a mule to keep him 
compan}', and with his first full suit of store 
xjlothes on, and a red handkerchief sticking out 
of the breast pocket, he was a happy boy, and 
thought himself a happy m^an. If he were wise, 
as few such youths were, he took along a paper 
of pins, to fasten up the triangular liaps of cloth 
which were liable to be torn out by every pro- 
jecting thorn or splinter. 

Challis delaine w^as the favorite dress goods 
for the young lady of the period. The straw 
hat had become her exclusi\'e head-gear for 
dress occasions. 

The (Broadcloth and Satin (Period. — So I 
designate the present era : when the merchant 
tailor and the dressmaker display their pattern 
charts in their windows, and even the rustic has 
learned to distinguish them from maps of the 
latest Eastern war; when the fashions set by the 
lorettes of Paris and less distant cities, through 
the foreign man milliners and the fashion mag- 
azines, are rapidly communicated to the ladies of 
the Hairy Nation, and by them at once adopted ; 
and when the flunkies of foreign tourists who go 



away from home to make themseh'^es known set 
the fashions of the s>:arments that enease the 
manly Hmbs of our noble youth. In tnith, the 
realy old-fashioned broadeloth is not so eommon 
an artiele here now as it was in the days of our 
fathers. Then, ever}' young man who was am- 
bitious to be somebody eherished the aspiration 
of having, at least onee in his life, a realh' tine 
coat. He would have a broadcloth, if possible; 
and it would be no petersham imitation. The 
first, the best, perhaps, the onl}' genuine broad- 
cloth garment that I ever wore was a round- 
about made of my father^s blue broadcloth wed- 
ding coat. It is a curious fact that genuine 
broadcloth was relatively commoner among the 
Saukees than among us ; and it is a fact equally 
curious that the women wore more of it than 
the men. 



^K% 



HOME AND SOCIAL LIFPl 

^4 Ho7ne on Horseback— It has ^ften been 
said that the Indians were at home on horse- 
baek. The men spent a great portion of theii' 
time, espeeiall}' in summer,, on horseback ; and 
both men and women were skillful, though not 
graceful riders. But there was a more literal 
sense in which they had a home on horseback> 
Their house was a portable one ; in their fre^ 
quent moves, the}' took the house apart, and 
carried the materials, with all their household 
property, along with them; and their only mode 
of con\'e}^ance was to pack all of these things 
on the backs of horses. In packing the house 
at moving time, the load was made up with a 
broad, flat top ; and the squaw mounted to the 
top of it, and rode with one side toward the 
horse ^s head, and her feet pointed straight out 
from his side. The animal needed but little 



64 

guiding : for their horses were trained to follow 
a leader, in single tile. If the squaw had a pap- 
poose, she swung it on her back, in a sort of 
flat-backed pocket, Hke a tall comb-case, made 
of leather, with a board for a back. This was 
the pappoose's cradle and perambulator. In 
it he could be carried, laid down or stood on 
end against a tree, as convenience required. 
From causes which should be explained in scien- 
tific treatises, rather than in such books as this, 
the pappoose was not so frequent an incum- 
brance in the Indian as in the white famil}'. 
Besides this, the rate of infant mortalit}' was 
proportional 1}' greater among them than even 
among us ; owing, doubtless, to the hard treat- 
ment to which children were subjected b}' the 
conditions of Indian life. 

In nothing is the progress of civilization more 
strongl}' marked than in the difference in the 
status of woman between the Indians who lived 
here fort}' years ago and our own people. The 
position of the Indian woman was that of a ser- 
vant. She did all the drudgery of the camp. 
She put up the house, took care of it and packed 
it for removal. When her husband came in 
with game, he threw it down in a convenient 



■ 65 

spot, and then his cares were ended for the da}'. 
She not only skinned the carcasses and prepared 
the meat, but she took care of the horse which 
he had ridden. 

The Indian woman was a neat housekeeper, 
according to her notion ; but her method of 
cleaning a dish by spitting on it and wiping it 
with her skirt would not be approved b}' our 
notable housekeepers. The food of the Indians 
was mostly animal food. Dog meat was a 
prime delicacy, and skunk and groundhog was 
good meat. They had a method of killing and 
deodorizing the skunk that made the meat pal- 
atable — to an Indian appetite. If they had a 
boiled dinner, it was usually cooked all together 
in a tin or iron kettle ; then the whole family 
gathered around the kettle, and each individual 
lished out a portion with a stick, took it in his 
hands and devoured it. 

The Indians were hospitable. To refuse to 
partake of their fare was to deepl}' offend them. 
My father and two or three friends once had the 
pleasure of dining with Keokuk. The chief's 
table was furnished with knives, forks and pew- 
ter plates, and was served in good st}le. A 
white visitor rarely left an Indian's tent without 



66 



a present ; but the Indians of the lower elass 
calculated on making live visits to every one 
they received from their white neighbors, and 
on being proportionally the gainers in the ex- 
change of gifts. Some of the society customs 
of the present day look like a refinement of this 
Indian custom. 

The Old Cabin Ho'tne. — The mistress of the 
cabin had a range of duties not less varied, nor 
much less laborious than that of her uncivilized 
predecessor ; not that the man would not lighten 
her burdens, but that he had enough of his own 
without. They were joint conquerors of the 
wild, and their task called forth all the energies 
of both. One woman often had to do all the 
cooking, washing and mending for a large fam- 
ily; make all their clothes, perhaps the cloth of 
which the clothes were made, and sometimes 
the cloth of which her neighbors' clothes were 
made besides ; make the soap for the famil}' use, 
milk the cows and churn the butter ; put the 
house to rights by strokes here and there in the 
intervals ; and suckle the baby while she was 
resting. Yet her house was nearly always tidy; 
and she found time to go to meeting, nurse the 
sick and make social visits to her few neiirhbors. 



f,7 

The children had barel}' thiie to become ac- 
quainted with their mother before they were 
doomed to lie alone, watched perhaps b}' an old- 
er child, while she pursued her accustomed 
round. They were not allowed to remain long 
in the condition of helpless burdens ; something 
was soon found for the little hands to do. Child- 
ren could not lind pla3'mates b}' going across a 
lane or alley, The^' did not learn lessons of dis- 
obedience and profligacy so readily as children 
do now ; the}' felt their dependence on their 
parents more, and felt a greater reverence for 
them ; the affection between parent and child, if 
it did not always seem so tender, was deeper. 

People, young and old, prized each other's 
companionship and friendship more than they do 
in thickly populated communities. Young people 
treated each other and their elders with more 
respect. The youth w^as more bashful, the 
maiden more coy. 

Journeys to meetings, to frolics or on neigh- 
borly visits were nearly always made on foot or 
on horseback. A couple, whether husband and 
wife or lover and sweetheart, frequently rode 
the same horse ; the man in the saddle, and the 
woman behind. In fords and other tr}'ing 



68 



places, the woman, if she were a maid, would 
lightly clasp her protector's waist; if a wife, she 
would hrmly grasp the waistband of his trousers. 

All kinds of working-bees were made occa- 
sions of social enjoyment b\' all. The evenings 
were given up to the young. The sports at 
these parties were principall}' romping plays, 
composed of singing and promenading, seasoned 
with kisses according to taste. The difference 
of tastes in this matter, in all stages of civiliza- 
tion, seems to be a difference only in degree. 

^A Transition (Period. — The fusion of el- 
ements in our population made a confusion in 
social customs. The twenty years ending about 
ten years ago may be considered as a period of 
transition. During that time, different customs 
embraced within the wide reach of this topic 
changed very unequally, in relation to each oth- 
er and to time. The same change occurred at 
different times in different communities ; as 
some communities received the full light of the 
sun of civilization earh' in the morning of our 
history, while others are just now emerging 
from the shade. 

In the visiting customs of the Nation, two 
distinct periods are embraced within the one 



69 

here marked out. First, beginning with tlie 
general opening of farms in all sections and the 
general organization of communities, it was the 
custom for many years for each lad}' in a coun- 
try neighborhood, besides casual calls, to make 
a reo:ular round of all-day visits to all of her 
neio^hbors, taking: her work with her. The mat- 
ter was discussed very much as the fashionable 
call is now discussed : ''I haven't been to see her 
to stay all day for a 'coon's age, and I must go;" 
or, '^I was at her house last, and it is her time." 
When every farm adjoined another on ever}' 
side, and jealousies arose between the family 
that rode in a spring wagon and the family that 
had an organ or a two-story house, visiting be- 
came less formal and regular, and, curiously, 
less friendly. 

In different country communities, at different 
times within the period described, a revival of 
the early forms of social festivities, with some 
modern improvements, has broken out like an 
epidemic, run for two or three winters, and then 
subsided. In most cases, this phenomenon was 
due to a struggle made by the younger portion 
of the communit}' to throw off the restraints of 
the rimd habits into which their elders had 



settled after the stiug'gles of pioneer life were 
over. The struggle ended in mutual eonees- 
sions ; the }'oungsters narrowing the breadth of 
their wild oats erop, and the old people eonsent- 
ing to pay the tiddler at the harvest feast. 
After these spurts of social activity, such com- 
munities settled into the dead-level course which 
follows all compromises. Social parties are rare 
events now in the more cultured country com- 
munities of the Hairy Nation. Even the spell- 
ing and singing schools, which were popular 
sources of amusement awa}^ back to the prim- 
itive times, can no longer be called fashionable. 

''The (Period/' — In the cant phrase of the 
period, any person or object representative of a 
prevalent social phase is, for example, the girl or 
the garment "of the period." Among us, more 
than commonly, the fashion of the town is the 
fashion of the period. There is a craze among" 
the- prosperous country' families to become town 
people; and those who cannot are anxious to be 
like the town people : wh}-, it would be hard to 
say.^ 

The ladies of the town do not visit, they call. 
When a lady has received a call, she owes the 
caller one. If the caller tinds her friend absent, 



7^ 

as the Irish might say, she turns down tlie lower 
left-hand eorner of a eard, and shoves it under 
the door. Thus the lady whom she did not see, 
whom perhaps she has never seen, reeei\'es form- 
al notice that she owes a social debt to the call- 
er. She must go and sho\-e her card under the 
other's door to be on even terms. 

A curious phenomenon in the social life of 
Bloomfield was the extraordinary social activity 
which prevailed on the eve of die great panic 
and for a season or two after its beginning. It 
was the gayest, and the most distressful^ time 
the town has ever seen. This was followed by 
a period of unusual stagnation, when every one 
who had kept his manhood was immersed in 
business cares. A similar ht of ga^ ety accom- 
panied the depression of the past winter. 

The people of the Hair}- Nation ha\'e passed 
the period of sojourn. They begin to look upon 
the home as a fixed fact. The rising generation 
know the land of their birth onh' as a land of 
civilization; and by virtue of the toils and priva- 
tions of parents often unlettered and rude, they 
may cull the brightest flowers of science, liter- 
ature and art to adorn the homes it now be- 
comes their turn to make. 



72 



COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE. 

Twin Institutions. — A country could not be 
properly peopled and subjected to the rule of 
civilization without the noble institution of mar- 
riage. The marriage certificate is a naturaliza- 
tion paper, admitting the bearer to citizenship in 
the commonwealth of the most advanced civil- 
ization; all others being aliens. No family should 
be without one. This is a commonwealth in 
which the rights and pri\ileges of citizenship 
are conferred upon both sexes with exact impar- 
tialit}', and without regard to propert^' or liter- 
ary qualifications or other restrictions, except 
the nominal requirement of a sound mind in a 
sound body ; a requirement w4iich is often 
waived on account of the rarit}' of the condition. 

Courtship is considered among civilized peo- 
ples as a necessar}' preliminar^• to marriage. 
Our predecessors dispensed with it. The ''old, 



73 

old stor}'^^ ]s said to be the same in all lan- 
guages and in all ages ; but it has been told in 
many different ways and under a great variety 
of circumstances. 

Early Incidents.—K story, which is at least 
partly true, is told of a 3'oung man beloncring to 
one of the least cultured of the pioneer families. 
Perhaps because he was afraid to be caught 
courting in his own neighborhood, he went'^to 
see a young lady who lived at a distance, in 
Missoui-i. The visit would occupy two or three 
daj's, lie took in his saddle-bags a provision of 
corn dodger and bacon sufficient to sustain him 
through it. To escape observation, he started 
at night. The girPs people invited him to sit at 
their table, when a meal was ready; but he 
steadily refused, saying: "Oh! noj^'lVegota 
bite here ; '' and he sat apart and gnawed at his 
bacon and dodger. He married another woman. 
A young couple had, by the use of sign lan- 
guage, slate writing or other mysterious meth- 
ods known to bashful lovers, come to an under- 
standing that they would be married on a cer- 
tain evening. At all events, the girl's family 
had prepared a feast on that evening ; and the 
young man came, arrayed in garments uncom- 



74 

fortable enough to be hung In. There came a 
time when all present ranged themselves round 
the room, folded their hands before them, and 
looked down, terribly silent. The unhappy 3'outh 
felt that nothing would break the spell but some 
action of his. Gathering the last of his fleeting- 
courage, he sprang into the middle of the room, 
nodded to the girl, and said : ''Come on if you 
want to." It appeared that she "wanted to ; '' 
for she came, and the minister pronounced the 
magic words that removed the scales of bashful- 
ness from their eyes forever. 

At a wedding which I attended, and which of 
course was in comparatively modern times, about 
nine o'clock in the evening, when only young 
people were left in the sitting-room, the young 
ladies, after a little whispering among themselves, 
suddenly left the room, taking with them the 
bride and the lamp, and leaving the 3'Oung gent- 
lemen in total darkness. Each man, to find out 
whether he were alone or not, at once began 
throwing missiles at the darkest spots he could 
see. Soon the ladies returned, and we escorted 
the bridegroom to the bridal chamber. The 
motionless form of the bride was dimly outlined 
in the bed-clothes at the farther edge of the bed. 



75 

apparently facing the wall. Her raiment was 
carefully piled on a chair, which some inquis- 
itive youth took pains to overturn in the floor. 
The bridegroom was stripped to the pantaloons 
by officious assistants. Then he sat down on the' 
side of the bed, and a kind friend made a boot- 
jack of himself. We saw him stretched on his 
back on the bed-rail, and the chaplain of the 
company was about to pronounce a benediction, 
when the bridegroom, with a very brief, but 
very decisive formula, dismissed the congrega- 
tion; and we left him alone in his glory. 

Customs and ^Phrases. — In the early days, 
when a girl, or her mother acting for her, had 
given notice, by the cut of her garments and 
other signs, that she was ready to receive the 
attentions of gentlemen with a view to matrimo- 
ny, it was said that she had "set out." 

When a gentleman was paying regular atten- 
tions to a lady, it was said that he was "setting 
to'' her. If he went to see her every two weeks 
for as much as three months, people said they 
were "promised," or she was "bespoke." If he 
did not marry her after that, they said he had 
"fooled" her. I can remember a time when a 
certain class of young men, considered honor- 



^6 

able otherwise, and favorite bcLius, thought 
themselves no men at all, and not read}' to settle 
down and marr3% until the}' had ^'fooled'' two 
or three g:irls. 

In the early and middle ages of the Nation, 
young men generally went on "sparking'' ex- 
peditions on horseback; in the middle ages, they 
often went in couples. A man who had three 
or four grown daughters found his house a pop- 
ular resort on Sundays, but he could hardly ever 
lay up anything. His fences were pulled down, 
his grain fed out, his provisions eaten, his fuel 
burned, and his substance wasted generally. It 
was a matter of great anxiety to a beau on his 
first visit to know whether the old man would 
put up his horse or not. If the old man asked 
him to stay all night, he considered that he was 
not wanted ; but if he received no such invita- 
tion, he came every two weeks, and stayed until 
from one to four in the inorning. 

It used to be fashionable for the young men 
to go to church or singing school alone, and go 
home with the girls. At the close of services, 
at church, a line of young men would be ranged 
between the ends of the seats near the door, on 
the "men's side," waiting for the girls, and bar- 



77 

ring the way to those behind them. After many 
false starts, eitlier from timidity or to attract 
attention, the girls would make a break for the 
door. Then the bad small boys would begin to 
shout : '^There he goes!'' "got the mitten!" and 
like remarks. A bashful youth would often 
wait outside, grasp a girl's arm, and ask permis- 
sion to "see her home." 

Following a custom brought by the southern 
immigrants, a couple desiring to be married, in 
the earliest days, sometimes went to a minister 
or justice on horseback, taking a pair of "shuck" 
collars, .swung on the horses' necks, to pay the 
wedding fee. 

Traces of all these customs, except the last, 
may still be seen in some localities. We have 
not altogether outgrown even the charivari. 

Society Usages. — Society neutralizes its own 
seductive influences by throwing around its vo- 
taries safeguards unknown to plainer folks. 
When a town gallant desires to pay a lady's 
way to the theater, or to hear her play on her 
piano for an hour or two, he expresses the wish 
in a formal note, and hires a boy to carry it to 
her. The accumulated missives furnish her 
with documentary evidence of the extent and 



78 

vigor of the courtship. Much note paper is 
consumed, and much "good^' money paid for Hv- 
ery hire and confections, in social adventures 
that do not properly belong to the domain of 
courtship. This subjects the real lover to like 
exactions, and makes courtship expensive. The 
expensiveness and comparative publicity of court- 
ship under such conditions tends to shorten and 
intensify it. 

When a courtship ends in marriage, or a mar- 
riage takes place for any cause, the reporter, if 
the "parties'' are within the range of his vision, 
hails it as a "society event,'' generally a "bril- 
liant" one. He publishes a list of those who 
were present, and of the gifts they brought. 
Expecting this, the invited persons strive to at- 
tend and to bring gifts. If they are confessedly 
poor, they bring cheap gifts ; if they are able to 
pay for the notoriety, or wish to be thought so, 
they bring such as will make a great display. 
With these facts in view, the hosts invite a great 
number, especiall}' of the rich. The sale of 
daughters to rich men wanting wives is not un- 
known among us, though happily not common. 



19 



RELIGION. 

Religion is an essential element of civilization. 

First Seed. — The Methodist Episcopal was 
the pioneer religious denomination of the Hairy 
Nation, as of nearl}' all portions of the West 
which were settled in a similar manner. They 
had local organizations in the advance settle- 
ments, in both the south and the east^ before the 
general settlement began. Rev. Thomas Kirk- 
patrick, who preached in the eastern settlements 
as early as 1840, was probably the first minister 
who held regular services within our present 
limits. Dr. Still, a physician and local preacher 
living in Missouri, conducted services in the 
southern settlements early in the forties. 

The Baptists were almost abreast of the 
Methodists in the southern settlements, and were 
nearl}^ as strong there when those settlements 
were merged in the organized county. Rev. A. 



8a 



T. I lite, a Missouri minister^ and Rev. Henry 
Dooley, a pioneer resident, were their tirst min- 
isters. 

The Old and New Sehool Presbyterians ob- 
tained an early and a strong foothold in Troy 
and its vicinity. 

The Tioneer Circuit ''Rider. — No more la- 
borious nor self-den}ing pioneer work was done 
here by any class of men than that done by the 
tirst itinerant Methodist preachers. The county 
was attached to Iowa Conference in 1844. J. F. 
New was the first pastor of this circuit. Sever- 
al of the first pastors had a circuit extending 
through \^n Buren, Davis and Appanoose 
counties. One year, when two preachers, Rob- 
erts and Jay, were on the circuit, traveling sep- 
arately, it took each a month to make the round, 
preaching several times a week. The country 
was not well provided with roads and bridges, 
and their journeys were not pleasure excursions. 

Camp Meetings. — As the county became well 
settled, the Methodists, and in some localities 
where they had grown strong the Cumberland 
Presbyterians, established regular camp-grounds, 
where annual meetings were held. Usually, the 
camp-meeting began on Thursday or Friday 



8i 



evening, and was held over the second Sunday. 
Cloth tents or board houses were ranged round 
a large square, seated with slabs or thick planks. 
Families livins: several miles awav came and 
lived in these tents throughout the meeting. A 
Sunday congregation would often number three 
or four thousand. 

Churches. — In the early days, religious serv- 
ices were held mosth' in schoolhouses. Twenty 
years after the tirst settlements, not more than 
four or five churches had been built. Our peo- 
ple have not rendered back to the Lord a large 
proportion of the means with which he has 
blessed them in the erection and embellishment 
of costly edifices devoted J:o his service, 3'et ev- 
ery community is well provided with comfort- 
able and sightly houses of worship. 

(Present State. — Most of the denominations 
represented in the West have organizations here. 
The Christian denomination has grown in late 
years to be the second in point of numbers, the 
Methodist being first. Probably, the proportion 
of religious people in our population, or the av- 
erage quantity of piet}^ to the individual, is not 
greater than it was in the pioneer days ; but the 
fiercer elements of opposition have been subdued. 



bz 



EDUCATION. 

The Three (R's. — The tirst schoolliouscs were 
built of logs. Wherever a number of immigrant 
families had clustered, they built a schoolhouse 
in such a location as their con\'enience dictated. 
There were no organized school districts until a 
year or two after the county organization. The 
schools were all subscription schools. Each fam- 
ily agreed to send a c^^rtain number of scholars, 
and pay so much a head. The usual price of 
tuition was from a dollar to a dollar and a-half a 
scholar for a term of three months. The reader, 
if he has improved our modern educational ad- 
vantages in the cultivation of his arithmetic, can 
easily figure out that the teacher's wages would 
not enable him to indulge in nuich luxury. The 
teacher usuall}' boarded round among the schol- 
ars. For twent}' years, it continued to be the 
custom for the teacher to visit each family once 
during the term. The mother would put the 



8,1 

house in order, and the head of the famil}' con- 
tingent would invite the teacher to go home 
with them that evening. The father and mother 
would amuse or weary him. with discussions of 
the grammatical puzzles which had worried the 
scholar and tested the learning of the teacher in 
their school days. If he were known to be a 
relipfious man, he would be invited to ask the 
blessing at table, and to pray out aloud through 
the back of a chair, while the rest listened. On 
the day before and the day after the visit, the 
children wore their good clothes, behaved as 
well as the}' could, and w^ei-e exempt from ex- 
treme punishment. On the day after, the teach- 
er ate dinner with them, and they had wheat 
bread. A teacher's board-rate was light, even then. 
The course of study was limited to "the three 
R's,'"* "reading Vitin' and Vethmetic.'^ A major- 
it}' of the very earl}' settlers came from sections 
where education w^as not popular; and many of 
them would have considered an attempt to ex- 
tend the rang-e of knowledo^e almost a sacrilesre. 

CD CS O 

They thought it spoiled a boy to know more 
than his father. A teacher's attainments did not 
have to bear the test of official examination. 
The teacher might be, though rareh', a man of 



H 

tine education, who hid drifted or been pushed 
into these wilds ; or, more hkel}', some old ig- 
noramus whose only recommendation w^is ability 
to thrash the big bo3^s into subjection; or, oftener 
still, a young person w^ho knew nothing outside 
of school books, and very little in them. 

But little class work was done. Arithmetic, 
which was made the leading study, was rarely- 
taught in classes at all. liach student w^ent alone. 
When he found a "sum^^ he could not "work," 
the teacher helped him. This, with setting cop- 
ies and making and mending quill pens for the 
writing pupils, took up most of the teacher's 
time. The drill in reading was chiefl}^ on the 
plan: "Read up loud enough for me to hear 
you at the farther end of the room; count one 
for a comma, two for a semicolon, three for a 
colon and four for a period." A class was often 
left to read away for ten minutes, w^hile the 
teacher "worked a sum" for some scholar; the 
teacher pausing in his work, vvdien called upon, 
to pronounce the hard words. 

The (District School. — A territorial law of 
1839, providing for the organization of school 
districts within the different counties, came into 
actual operation here soon after the county or- 



85 

ganization. From this point to the estabHsh- 
meiit oi the institute S3^stem, twenty-odd years, 
ma}/ be considered as one stage in our educa- 
tional progress. By a state law^ of 1858, each 
township became an independent district, divided 
into sub-districts. During this period, also, the 
office of School Fund Commissioner in 1850, 
and in its place that of County Superintendent 
in 1858, were created specially to provide, on 
different plans, for the management of the 
school affairs of the county. 

This was the perfect reign of the district 
school. During this time, each school was a 
little kingdom in itself. Its direct connection 
with the rest of the educational system of the 
country was slight, and the masses of the youth 
knew no other institution of learning. In the 
last years, the Superintendent issued a certificate 
to the teacher; and once in a term he made a 
visit of two or three hours to the school. On 
the occasion of his visit, special classes were 
selected or made up for the purpose, and ex- 
ercised in certain studies which were pat with 
them, to show the officer the advancement of 
the school. Then he made a speech, com- 
plimented the scholars, and went on his round. 



86 



For aug'ht I know, Superintendents are cloing- 
that to this day. Changes in the methods of 
teaching were gradual. School work was now 
reduced to the class system. Each school estab- 
lished a text-book standard, and made steady 
progress toward uniformity. 

The sub-districts generally contained from six 
to nine square miles, most of them being three 
miles square. After the year 1850, the average 
population of the sub-districts, outside of the 
towns, was nearly 250; and the average number 
of children entitled to tuition, from 80 to 100. 
The country schoolhouses built during this pe- 
riod w^ere nearly all frame. A few large dis- 
tricts, which were strong at the time of building, 
put up houses larger than the common run of 
schoolhouses of the present da3\ 

Since the times here described, the districts 
have been generall}' reduced in size, and neat 
frame schoolhouses, of nearly uniform size and 
style, built in almost all of them. 

Institutes. — A series of laws, completed about 
i860, provided for the holding of a six-days 
institute, annually, in each count}', upon petition 
of thirty teachers ; and for a fund of lift}' dol- 
lars, to be used in paying the expenses of each 



87 

institute. Institutes were held in this count}' 
early in the sixties. A. regular succession was 
established, and a general attendance secured 
some time before the year 1870. 

x\n institute of this time was managed by a 
hired instructor, who took up the time in exhib- 
iting his smartness on subjects of his own selec- 
tion, calling upon a teacher, now and then, to 
perform on the blackboard, to give him a fresh 
butt for criticism. If a teacher voluntarily 
proffered any original thought, he was snubbed 
for his pains. I attended such an institute once. 
I am naturally modest ; I rose only once. Crit- 
icisms were in order. A fellow teacher, in a 
criticism, made a violent assault upon the Eng- 
lish language. I rose to defend my mother 
tongue. I veiled my criticism of the critic 
under the guise of a joke. M3' st}'le of joke 
was one thing the learned professor could not 
master. He asked me to explain it. That was 
too much for me. I "sunk to rise no more." 

The present normal institutes were established 
in 1874. They have been a still more efficient 
means of systemizing the teacher's work ; en- 
couraging cooperation, and stimulating impro\'e- 
ment. System in teaching has become the chief 



88 



demand upon the teacher. In faet, in the early 
da3^s of these institutes, the word was dinned in 
his ears and eame out of his mouth on all oc- 
casions. A teacher who never had any system 
in his school would rise before a full institute, at 
the call of his name, and unfold a "system^' of 
organizing and conducting a school, elaborate 
and faultless, and beyond the possibility of ex- 
ecution. Then he would sit down with a self- 
satisfied smile, and another would rise; and with 
a lamb's-wool eraser and a glib tongue he would 
demolish the first teacher's system in two min- 
utes, and in four more produce another equally 
magnificent and absurd. Of course, these re- 
marks are not applicable to the present time. 

Troy Academy. — The communit}^ about Troy 
was noted in the early da3^s for culture and mo- 
rality. The Odd Fellows were strong here. In 
1853, they erected a large two story frame build- 
ing, and established an academ}' ; designed, pri- 
marily, to give a free academic education to the 
children of their local members, but open to all. 
This institution has done more than any other to 
advance the standard of intelligence in the sur- 
rounding country. Great numbers of the youth 
of the Hairy Nation, the author among them, 



89 

received their highest schooling at this academy. 
Through several changes of management and 
system, it has continued its work to the present 
day. Competition has greatly narrowed its 
field ; and now it is proposed to convert it into 
a township high school. It was a pioneer in its 
original field, and it may be a pioneer in the 
next great field which Iowa educators have to 
bring into culture. In speaking of this academy, 
a departure may be allowed, for a 'special men- 
tion of the name of Hon. T. O. Norris, one of 
the most honorable names in our educational 
history, and one inseparably linked with the his- 
tory of the academy in all stages. 

(Bloomfield (Public School. — The Independent 
District of Bloomfield, having decided to unite 
its schools, which had overrun the old buildings, 
purchased a block of ground in a central loca- 
tion, and in 1875 erected an elegant brick build- 
ing, of two stories, with mansard roof. The 
interior arrangement of the building is tasteful 
and convenient. It is now heated by steam. 
Its original cost was about $22,000. Few 
towns in the country of the size of Bloomfield 
have public schoolhouses equal to it. In the 
past year, all the class rooms, eight in number, 



90 

were fitted up for use, and eight separate grades 
were maintained. This will not be sufficient for 
future needs ; and a large audience room in the 
mansard stor}' will probably be converted into 
two additional class rooms, in the coming year. 
Although the town has an excellent institution 
devoted exclusively to higher education, thor- 
ough provisions are made for the advancement 
of the pupils of the public school to a high grade 
of scholarship. Bloomtield has reason to be 
proud of its schools. 

The J^ormal School, — At the county institute 
held in December, 1873, the project of establish- 
ing a normal school in Bloomfield was set on 
foot. A stock company was formed, and in 
1874 a tine brick building, of two stories and 
basement, was erected on high, level ground, 
between the public square and the railroad sta- 
tions. Prof. A. Axline, of Fairfield, was chosen 
principal; the school was opened in the spring of 
1874, and in the fall removed into the new build- 
ing. Prof. G. W. Cullison, from the Troy Nor- 
mal School, was afterwards associated with Prof. 
Axline in the management of the school. The 
pressure of the great panic caused the suspen- 
sion of the school in 1877. In August, 1878, 



91 

it was reestablished, under the name of "South- 
ern Iowa Normal School and Commercial In- 
stiute," by Profs. O. A. Shotts and A. H, Con- 
rad. In 1880, Prof. Conrad retired from the 
management, and was succeeded by Prof. Jesse 
Summers, who soon afterward took sole control. 
In the spring of 1882, Prof. Summers retired; 
Profs. O. H. Longwell and S. H. Strite, of the 
faculty, assumed the proprietorship, with Prof, 
Longwell as principal ; and Prof. Conrad w^as 
restored to a place in the faculty. The man- 
agers of the school, since its reestablishment, 
have all been graduates of the normal school at 
Valparaiso, Indiana. 

The school has steadily progressed in efficien- 
cy from the first. It is now on a better footing 
than ever before ; and its work is of such a char- 
acter as to inspire confidence in its stability, and 
justify its friends in inviting students. Prof. 
Longwell, the principal, is a gentleman of fine 
scholarship and an ample fund of general in- 
formation, of unexceptionable deportment, and 
very thorough in his methods as a teacher. He 
is well seconded by a strong and harmonious 
corps of teachers. Aside from its specialty of 
normal instruction, this school affords to its 



92 

students an academic and collegiate education 
ample for the general needs of the youth of the 
West. It is a bright star in the crown of the 
once uncouth and derided Hairy Nation. 

J^ew Features. — The present Superintendent, 
Prof. J. C. Dooley, a native of the county, has, 
during his term of office, been laboring to per- 
fect a graduated system of township, county, 
district, state and inter-state teachers^ associa- 
tions ; each association to hold stated sessions, 
confer upon school matters, engage in literary 
contests and choose representatives to the next 
higher association. The plan is now in success- 
ful operation in this county, has been adopted, 
with some modifications, by several other coun- 
ties of the state, has obtained a foothold in Kan- 
sas, and has received the approval of a number 
of prominent educators in different parts of the 
country. Its general adoption would reflect 
credit upon the county where it originated. 

Prof. Dooley recently commenced the pub- 
lication of a local school journal, called "The 
Davis County School Worker ; " a neat little 
paper of eight three-column pages. It meets 
with decided favor among the teachers and 
others who have the care of schools. 



93 



AGRICULTURE. 

Squaw Corn. — The Saukees were not an ag- 
ricultural people. I have not learned that they 
ever tilled the soil of the Hairy Nation at all. 
About their summer villages, the squawks did 
raise a little corn, v^hich the white settlers called 
^^squaw corn.'' It was a blue corn, smoother 
and with smaller ears than the corn we now 
cultivate. Ten or twelve years after the last 
Indian had departed, a mixed variety of the 
same corn, under the same name, was introduced 
here, from some of the more eastern states, as 
something new. The Indians made great use of 
corn for food. They parched large quantities of 
it, and took it with them in bags, on their jour- 
neys. They sometimes gave it to their horses, 
in cases of extreme necessity. 

The Grubbing Hoe. — As before observed, the 
heaviest of the early settlements were in the 



04 

south. The settlers were mostly of southern 
stock, and accustomed to a wooded country. 
They left untouched thousands of acres of the 
finest lands in the country, which the}' could 
have had by merely claiming them, and settled 
in the woods. In so doing they narrowed the 
bounds of their own life, and built a brush fence 
between their children and the wicked world. 
Sometimes the children were very slow in break- 
ing the fence, but when they had broken it they 
were like a flock of sheep astra}'. Several of 
the children of one of the foremost of these 
families never saw the county seat until the}' 
were twenty years old ; and this was a sample 
of their progress in breaking the fence. 

The ax, the brush-scythe and the grubbing- 
hoe were the pioneer implenients in the opening 
of the timber farms. It was the way father had 
done, "back yander,'' and the settler had not yet 
learned that there was an easier way. He had 
not learned what the prairies were for, and he 
was afraid oi them. The farms grew slowly, 
for a man could clear only a few acres in a year. 
There was no convenient market for the prod- 
ucts of the farm, and no great inducement to 
raise large crops. 



95 

The hog was abnost the onl}' animal raised 
for market. A long-legged, long-nosed, sharp- 
backed variety was the most commonly bred; 
for the markets were distant, and a hog was 
most valued for his traveling qualities. Speed 
and endurance were points more prized and cul- 
tivated in the hog than in the horse. The hog- 
lived almost, sometimes quite to the time of 
marketing on the mast. So, the demand* for 
corn was not heavy ; yet it was the principal 
crop. Oats were perhaps next, and wheat and 
rye nearly equal. The breadstuffs were copi, 
rye and wheat, in the order named. Most of 
the farmers raised some flax and tobacco. 

For breaking ground, the "bar-share^' plow 
was used to some extent at first ; but the Carey 
plow mostly. The chief difference was that in 
the bar-share plow an iron plate lay flat on the 
ground, and a wooden mold-board was set on 
the middle of it, with very little slant ; while in 
the Carey, the rear of the plate was turned up, 
and formed the lower half of the mold-board. 
The single-shovel plow and the hoe were used 
in tending corn. In planting, the ground was 
checked off with a shovel-plow, and the corn 
4ropped in the crosses from the hand. Often 



96 

the ground was marked only one way, and tlie 
dropper was guided by a line of stakes set across 
the furrows. The sickle was still the principal 
reaping implement. 

The Sod ^Plow. — The opening of a farm in 
the middle of a prairie was regarded by the 
early woodsmen as a foolhardy enterprise. The 
irreatest natural obstacles, instead of stones and 
Stumps, were the toughness of the sod and the 
roots of the prairie willow and the "shoestring.'' 
Until the soil was subdued, it was very hard to 
get good living wells. The greatest difficulty in 
the way of the prairie farmers was in getting 
their fencing timber. To-day, when you ride 
for hours among the well cultivated fields that 
cover every foot of our prairies except the high- 
ways, imagine the founder of one of those farms 
mauling out of tough timber about thirty-four 
large rails, hauling them four or five miles, 
stringing them out, two to the rod, as a begin- 
nino^ for the "worm'' of the first fence on the 
prairie, and then looking back "to see how far 
he had got." Rather a blue prospect! yet that 
was what many a resolute man faced thirty or 
thirty-live years ago. Little by little, large 
tracts of the timbered lands were cut up into 



97 

small lots, to furnish fencing timber for the dis- 
tant prairie farmers. The professional rail- 
maker flourished in these days. 

The big sod-plow was the pioneer engine of 
civilization in this era. The owner of a "prairie 
team" was an important member of the com- 
munity. This consisted of three or four yoke 
of large oxen, and was usually worked by two 
men, who ''broke prairie'' for their neighbors for 
so much an acre. The diamond plow was now 
used for breaking old ground, and a small dia- 
mond sometimes for tending corn. The double- 
shovel plow and the hand corn-planter soon 
came into use. The cradle had supplanted the 
sickle. Wheat, especially spring, was more cul- 
tivated. The chinch bug introduced himself 
about this time. If sod were broken in the fall, 
the first crop was generally wheat ; if it were 
broken in the spring, it was generally planted in 
corn. Sod-corn was usually planted by driving 
an ax through the sod, and dropping the seed 
in the hole ; sometimes, by dropping the seed at 
the edge of a furrow, so that it would come up 
between the sods. About this time, the farmers 
began to sow timothy meadows. Pork-packing 
was done nearer home, more care was given to 



98 

the breeding of hogs, and the}' were better fat- 
tened. 

Fencing to the Line. — The farmer kept add- 
ing a few acres to his farm, and a few cattle to 
his herds, each year. By and b}', the country 
became so cut up with -farms, and the supply of 
grass so Hmited, that a boy had to be sent out 
every evening to bring the cows home. The 
man who owned a good deal of outlying land, 
on which his neighbor who had little or no land 
was pasturing his cattle, began to see that the 
''range'^ was no longer a rehable dependence. 
He resolved to fence out to the line, and feed 
his cattle from the products of his own soil. His 
neighbors soon followed his example, and the 
farm of fifty or a hundred acres rapidly swelled 
to twice its size. The enclosed pasture, which 
had been but a patch before, now became one of 
the largest and most important divisions of the 
farm. Probably half the land in the county was 
enclosed from 1865 to 1875. Every farm was 
bounded by lanes and other farms. 

Farmers planted large fields of corn, and 
raised immense crops in the rich, new soil; and 
great numbers of hogs and cattle were fattened. 
The reaper and mower, the cultivator, the 



99 

riding-plow, the wheeled corn-planter and the 
check-rower had taken the places of the prim- 
itive implements of the fathers ; and the farms 
were bounded and crossed by fences of plank or 
wire. The farmer^s barn was bulging with hay 
and grain, and his pocketbook with greenbacks. 
He was thrifty and prosperous, and began to be 
purse-proud. 

Then came the panic and the flood. The 
rains descended, not fort}' days, but nearly forty 
months. And the wailing voice of the farmer 
was heard above the roar of the elements, de- 
claring that he was the most unfortunate and 
miserable creature in the world; that everybody 
else lived by plucking him ; and that this was 
no country for farming, anyhow^; 

Going to Grass. — The farmers of the Hairy 
Nation are at last learning the lesson of success 
from the diversity of soil and surface — a divers- 
ity of products. The}' are learning that grass 
is their surest crop, the easiest to raise and to 
feed. Hay has become the most valuable part 
of the harvest. Blue grass is as thrifty and as 
rich as in Kentuck}'. 

The improvement of the quality of the live 
stock has received a large share of attention in 



lOO 

late years, and the result is that this is becoming 
a famous stock region. We can make as good 
a showing of blooded horses as any county of 
equal wealth in the country ; and our common 
horses attract the buyers for distant markets. 
The scraggy sheep from whose coarse fleece our 
mothers wove our fathers' brown jeans pant- 
aloons is now extinct ; and our hills and slopes 
are grazed by numerous flocks of Leicesters, 
Cotswolds and Merinos. Our wool crop is one 
of our largest sources of income. Swine are as 
numerous as ever, but their rearing and feeding 
does not form so large a share of the business of 
the farm as in former days. The}^ do not con- 
sume so much corn; for breeds that fatten easily 
and early are raised almost exclusively. In early 
times, when cattle fed on the rich and abundant 
native grass, and oxen were kept for work, the 
cattle were large and strong. When the native 
grass became scarce, and its place had not been 
filled by tame pasturage, the stock of cattle be- 
came scrubby. Latterly, by the admixture of 
foreign blood, our common stock of cattle has 
reached a high grade ; and we have many fine 
herds of pure-bred English cattle. Dairying is 
becoming an important industry of the Nation. 



loi 



ROADS. 

The Indian Trail. — -When the Indian wanted 
to go an3^where, he got up and went; that was 
all. He did not have to make the round of the 
premises before he started, to see that the bars 
were all up, and that none of his female swine 
were about to obtain the crown of maternity. 
He did not have to curry and harness a pair of 
mules, and get out the tar-bucket and lubricate 
the axles of his wagon ; the Indian never cur- 
ried. When he went, he usually took the most 
direct route. Whether he went on foot or on 
horseback would make but little difference in 
his course. His pony was trained to go almost 
anywhere that he could go. Any of our streams 
were fordable almost anywhere to an Indian. If 
he went to the same place again, he would take 
exactly the same route. If several Indians went 
together, they would go almost exactly in the 



I02 

same track. If the trip became habitual, the 
track became a regular trail. This wns the In- 
dian roacL It was never worked. Traces of 
Indian trails are still to be seen within the bor- 
ders of the Hair}' Nation. 

The Sod (Road. — The first roads of the white 
settlers were laid out on the same general prin- 
ciples : directness and immediate convenience. 
Roads made to accommodate wagons, or rather 
made by the frequent passage of wagons in the 
same place, were a little more devious. The 
wagons of that time were more cumbrous than 
those of the present day. The streams were 
more readily fordable then than now, and bridg- 
es were scarce!}' known. The wa}' through the 
woods was less obstructed by the undergrowth 
than in later years, and the slight deviations 
made to avoid the trees scarcely made the wind- 
ings of the road noticeable. A road would 
sometimes wind a little, to follow the course of 
an accommodating ridge. With these modifica- 
tions, the principal roads pursued the most direct 
course to the village, the mill, the blacksmith 
shop, the residence of the justice of the peace 
or the house devoted to the double service of 
education and religion. 



103 

Territorial (Roads. — In territorial times, a 
number of roads, on important lines of travel, 
were laid out under the direction of local LX)m- 
missioners, by special authority of the territorial 
g'overnment. These were called ''territorial 
roads. '^ After Iowa became a state, they were 
for a long time called *'state roads/"" Thrce or 
four of these roads were laid out through Davis 
count}'- One of them was to run through the 
county seats of the whole southern tier of coun> 
ties. This was the only one of the territorial or 
state roads that ever received an appropriation 
from the general fund. The manner in which 
this appropriation was obtained, as related by 
Dr. J. J. Selman, shows that the fathers »of the 
Hairy Nation had mastered the rudiments of 
American politics, and that the doctor himself 
might have made his mark in Congress, if he 
had been successful in his candidacy, eight years 
later. The people of Davis county wanted the 
road pushed through to the Missouri River. Dr. 
Selman w^as a member of the committee on 
roads in the State Senate. In committee, he 
proposed an appropriation for this road. All 
the other members objected to it, as a misap- 
plication of the public funds. Selman said his 



I04 

people wanted the road, and would expect him 
to introduce the measure : let it go to the Sen- 
ate, and the members could vote against it there 
if they wished. It went in as part of an om- 
nibus bill, like the river and harbor bills in Con- 
gress, and went through without question ; Sel- 
man's associates having forgotten all about it. 

^oad Working. — For over thirty 3'ears, the 
citizens of the Hairy Nation have been working 
the roads in nearly the same way. The change 
from the old serpentine sod road came about as 
farms began to be thickly located, and their bor- 
der fences began to push the roads from their 
natural courses. When the hitherto isolated 
farmers became competing land-grabbers, every 
man wanted a county road running by his house ; 
but he wanted the line of the road removed 
from its course over his outlying land, and laid 
out on the section line. 

The plan on which the roads of the Hairy 
Nation have been worked from that time to this 
is an original American idea. Historians and 
archaeologists have nowhere discovered, in an- 
cient or modern times, a similar system of pub- 
lic works in general and constant use among a 
great people. It is one of the peculiar out- 



I05 

growths of the pecuHar institutions of a very 
great and very free countr}' : a country where 
ever}' man is a so\'ereign, and every sovereign 
has a voice in the construction- of the highways 
— and earns a dollar and a-half by exercising his 
^'oice, in company with a number of equal sov- 
ereigns, for eight hours in the day, with a little 
incidental by-play on a three-pound ax, or the 
lightest Ames shovel he can find, or even a gar- 
den-hoe. 

No man w\\\ give an inch rnore than his half 
of. the land for a road, even where the land is 
worthless. The road must run exactly on the 
section line. No matter if the line crosses a 
stream where there is a high, perpendicular 
bluff on one side, and a long, low sand-bank on 
the other : the bridge must be placed there. 
Whether the line crosses a creek at right angles 
or runs in its bed for a hundred yards, the 
bridge must cross on the line. The bridges are 
generally built of poor materials, and loosel}' 
filled in at the ends with earth and trash. Often 
in the spring, when the}' are most needed, they 
are gone. The workmen build bridges and cul- 
verts with the full expectation that they shall 
have to replace them within the year. 



ro6 



There is no forethought or consultation pre- 
vious to election day as to the choice of a super- 
visor. Six or eight votes often elect a man in a 
country district. Newcomers are propitiated, 
and the ambition of young men is spurred by 
electing them to the office. As a result, the 
work is mostly in incompetent hands. The su- 
pervisor's authority is restricted by the propri- 
etary right of every land-owner; and the landed 
laborer improves every opportunity to overawe 
the supervisor by his presence, and obstruct him 
in the performance of his duty. If one of the 
owners of two opposite abutting tracts of land 
is present and the other absent, the most dam- 
aging furrows are alv/ays cut on the side of the 
absent one; while every fence-post or stake on 
the other side is carefully guarded. This is 
merely human nature, running loose ; but too 
much loose human nature is hardly ever con- 
ducive to the common good. 

The laborers beino^ mostlv men who have 
farms to manage and crops to tend, the work is 
done with regard to their convenience, I'ather 
than to the public need. Most of it is done in 
wet weather, when double labor is required to 
do the same piece of work, and no good work 



13Sk 



lO* 



can be done. The object aimed at is not to se- 
cure solidity in the road-bed, but wherever a 
tool can penetrate, to. destroy the soHdity which 
nature has estabhshed. The earth is left as 
loose, and as much at the sport of the elements, 
as possible. The funds are exhausted during 
the open seasons, and no provision is made for 
work in winter ; although in at least one year in 
every three, ever since the roads began to be 
confined to the lanes, travel has been more ob- 
structed in winter than in any other season. 

Of late years, a number of good, subtantial 
truss bridges have been built by contract, out of 
the county fund ; and a lonesome time the}' 
often have of it, for weeks at a time, in the 
spring, when half a mile or so of bottom road, 
on one side or both, is nearly impassable. 

A Threatened Innovation. — Within the past 
year, in various places within the borders of the 
great commonwealth with whose fortunes those 
of the Hairy Nation are linked, a vigorous 
agitation for a better system of roads has sprung 
up. A concerted movement is being made : 
conventions are being held; boards of trade, 
town councils and other public bodies are meet- 
ing and resolving ; and the newspapers are thun- 



io8 



dering. The boyish sports of the dawdling 
road-worker of the present eommunal S3\stem 
are to be rudely interrupted. It is proposed 
that all the highwa3^s shall be graded and bal- 
lasted, or underdrained, and that all the bridges 
and eulverts shall have stone foundations and 
approaches : the roads shall be constructed with 
a view to making them serviceable at all seasons. 
A s}'stem of hard-bottomed roads connecting 
the towns of the count}^ and crossing the 
streams on stone bridges, would give a great 
impetus to the prosperity of both the mercantile 
and agricultural communities. The markets 
would never be closed to the producers, and the 
outside trade of the towns would never be cut 
off or diverted. The over-charges which the 
people of Bloomtield have paid to wood-sellers 
during the mud blockades of the past ten years 
would have graded and bridged such a road 
from the sink-hole by the public well at the 
northeast corner of the courthouse yard to the 
heart of the deepest wilds of Hacklebarney. If 
this extortion had been principally levied upon 
the rich and influential, instead of mechanics and 
laborers who were never forehanded enough to 
lay in a season's supply of wood ahead, or ed- 



I09 

itors who waited until the last stick was in the 
stove for the wood which their subscribers were 
to bring, some such enterprise might have been 
inaugurated. 

Time was when Bloomtield and the towns in 
the southern part of the county had a trade ex- 
tending into Missouri, If they were now con- 
nected with the border by roads which would 
be good all the year round, the effect in bad 
seasons would be like that of laying a drain 
from a stagnant pond : the trade would flow 
where there was an outlet. An Iowa commu- 
nity could safely invest money so, in the faith of 
keeping the advantage of a Missouri community 
for many years, Missouri spends some money 
in pamphlets to induce the people of more enter- 
prising states to come in and develop her re- 
sources. She does not levy taxes and stimulate 
the energies of her own citizens to develop those 
resources. This is the boon which the people 
of the "disputed strip'' gained when their Iowa 
citizenship was established : the privilege of be- 
ing taxed for their own benefit, unhindered by 
the conservatism of an alien majority. 

^Railroads. — About thirty years ago, the Fort 
Madison, West Point, Keosauqua & Bloomfield 



I lO 



Railroad Company was organized. On the pe- 
tition of numerous citizens of the county, H. W. 
Briggs, the County Judge, ordered a special 
election, which was held on February 4th, 1854, 
to decide on a proposition to issue county bonds 
to the amount of $150,000 in aid of this road 
and the proposed North Missouri Railroad. The 
proposition was adopted. S. A. Moore succeed- 
ed Judge Briggs in 1855. He was soon waited 
upon by officials of the Fort Madison road, who 
claimed that the North Missouri road was a de- 
funct enterprise, and demanded that the judge 
should subscribe to their road nearly the whole 
amount of the stock provided for. He baiBed 
them for a while ; but finally agreed to subscribe 
$25,000 of the stock when the road was com- 
pleted to the county line, and further install- 
ments at different stages of its progress. The 
road was never built ; and the county, through 
Judge Moore's sagacity and integrity, having es- 
caped that danger, has never issued any bonds. 
On the 1 6th of February, 1854, a convention 
was held in Bloomtield, to promote the exten- 
sion of the North Missouri Railroad into Iowa. 
Soon afterwards, the "North Missouri and Iowa 
Extension Railroad Company'' was organized. 



Ill 



Davis county was represented in the directory 
by J. W, Ellis, H. W. Briggs, H. H, Trimble 
and J L Earhart, The Hair}' Nation waited 
nearly fifteen years for a sight of that ix)ad. In 
1568, it had reached the line, and a company 
called the *'St. Lonis & Cedar Rapids Railroad 
Company''"' had been organized, to extend it 
northward. In that year, a vigorous effort was 
made to raise a large sum by subscription, to 
secure its extension through the county. The 
greater portion was subscribed in Bloomlield, 
the only considerable town on the line ; and 
solicitors scoured the country, to swell the list. 
The unsophisticated farmer v^as made to believe 
that a depot would be built on his land, which 
would double its value ; stock would be issued 
for his subscription; and every stockholder could 
ride free. The people of the county subscribed 
$125,000. The road was completed to Bloom- 
tield about the beginning of 1869, and to Ottum- 
wa a few months later. The road is here yet ; 
though its employees often describe it as '^two 
parallel streaks of rust." Whether it will re- 
main here long or not admits of question, de- 
pendent, possibly, upon the outcome of- other 
railroad projects. It now belongs to the great 



112 



Wabash S3'stem, and is owned b}' Ja}' Gould. 
The people of the Hairy Nation invested more 
money in this road than they have ever invested 
in any other enterprise. There are five places 
in the county where p>ersons may g^et on its cars; 
there are three^ including- one (the best one,) 
jointly used by another company, where the}" 
may be sheltered from the storm while the\' 
wait for a slow train ; there is not one where 
more than half a dozen persons can be comfort- 
ably seated. 

In 187O7 Bloomtield township voted a live-per- 
cent tax to aid in the construction of the Burl- 
ington & Southwestern Railroad. The lev}' 
amounted to nearly $45,000, and it was inr 
creased by private subscriptions to about $55,- 
000. A condition of the tax was that the com- 
pany should run its cars to the depot site at 
Bloomfield by Christmas, 187 1. It did so ; but 
so nearly had the limit expired that ties were 
laid on the sod for some distance, to get the cars 
to the point on time. In its struggling infancy, 
the initials of this road were translated ''Burling- 
ton & Squirt Water ; '^ but even in its independ- 
ent existence it redeemed itself from obloquy b}' 
perseverance under difficulties ; and now that it 



113 

has become a part of the Chicago, BuHington & 
Quincy system, the people of the Nation hope 
for still better things from it. The compan}' 
pays the Wabash compan}' for the use of a very 
poor track from Bloomfield to Moulton. It is 
not likely that the powerful corporation which 
now owns the road will long be contented with 
this arrangement. A shorter route south of 
town would give the road a better grade. The 
fear that it may some time go there, and leave 
the town on a spur, is kept alive ; and may be 
used by the railroad company to extort mone}' 
from the town, when it decides to build its own 
line ; especially if it should happen that the 
Wabash company w^as about to take up its iron. 
The Chicago & Southwestern, now a line of 
the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, was built 
through the county about the same time. It re- 
ceived considerable aid in private subscriptions. 
Negotiations were kept up for some time be- 
tween the company and citizens of Bloomfield, 
looking to the building of the road to the town, 
in consideration of a contribution of money; but 
they came to naught, and the company built its 
road by way of Drakeville. It is a strong line, 
and Bloomfield suffered much in losing it. 



114 

There are ten places in the county where per- 
sons may get on the cars. Six of these are mail 
and express stations, and live are telegraph sta- 
tions. 

Some part of the county has alwa}'s some 
new railroad project in view. Hope is kept 
alive, and the people are kept patientty waiting 
to see whether the railroad will come or not. 
Whether Bloomlield or the county will ever 
have more or better railroad facilities than at 
present is wholly problematical. The solution of 
the problem doubtless rests with our own people, 
and depends upon what they do to make bus- 
iness for railroads. We have the resources. 
Shall they be utilized? That is the question. 



115 



BUSINESS 

Indian barter. — The early settlers were con- 
tinually approached by their Indian neighbors 
with proposals to ''swap." The Indian's com- 
mon stock in trade consisted of blankets, furs, 
skins, guns, arrows, bead ornaments, and, after 
the payment, money. The things he oftenest 
desired were corn, hogs, beeves and anything 
that was good to eat ; sometimes whisky and 
ammunition. Horses were traded both ways. 
Whatever the Indian could part with he would 
trade for anything he wanted, with little regard 
to the relative pecuniary value of the two art- 
icles. If a white man was ever cheated in an}' 
of these trades, the record of the transaction is 
lost. It has. been loosely charged that our fath- 
ers systematically cheated the Indians. That is 
a debatable question. The}' might sometimes 
get a good blanket for an armful of corn, or a 



ii6 



gun for a fat dog ; but the Indian was happy, 
and of course the white man did not grieve. 
Measuring the two articles by his dollar, the 
white man had ''made money, '^ which is the 
chief end of ci\ilized traffic. The Indian had 
no standard but his wants, and he made no pro- 
vision for the future The demand regulated 
the price. His present wants were supplied, and 
the conditions of his life were fulfilled. He 
could not be restricted by the white man's iiales 
of life and have the fun there was in being an 
Indian. 

The Indians sometimes gave their notes for 
what they bought. A note signed by Keokuk, 
Winokee, Wausanan or Nekotwaluskaskuk 
would have been worth its face to the recent 
art loan exhibition in Bloomtield. These notes 
were usually collected by presenting them to the 
agent at the time of the annual payment. A 
note always named, without describing the thing 
for which it was given : as a horse, an ox or a 
ho":. If it was for a horse, and the amount 
named seemed too large for an ordinary horse, 
the note was rejected as a fraud. 

The Long Haul. — There was but little di- 
versity in general business in the early da}\s of 



117 

the Hairy Nation, but greater diversity than 
now in the business of the individual. Dry 
goods, ''wet goods, ^' groceries, hats, shoes, 
leather, hardware, tools, saddles, ''gears, '^ guns, 
ammunition, quinine, "Number Six^' and Bull's 
"'Sassaferilla'' were all sold at the same store. 
All this merchandise was hauled from "the riv- 
er'' in wagons. It is a maxim of railroad bus- 
iness that there is profit in "the long haul." It 
w^as so in the case of the early merchant. His 
customers were dependent upon him. The cost 
of transportation was to them an uncertain quan- 
tity, and the merchant made ample allowance for 
it. His store was all the home market there was 
for the products of the farm or the spoils of the 
woods. He fixed the prices both wa3's, restrict- 
ed only by the elastic equity of circumstances. 
The long haul was a big haul to the pioneer 
merchant in the long run. 

Stiles S. Carpenter was the lirst merchant of 
the Hairy Nation. He tirst opened a store, 
about the month of March, 1844, on a claim he 
had taken up a short distance southeast of 
Bloomiield. After the town was laid out, he 
removed to the site now occupied by Gibbons' 
drug store. Carpenter had been a militia 



ii8 



colonel, and he was for several 3'ears prominent 
in the affairs of this count3\ John Lucas was 
a representative merchant of the time, and is so 
well remembered for his oddity that he is often 
spoken of as the tirst. He came to Bloomtield 
a few months after Carpenter. He lirst kept 
his goods in boxes in his dwelling-house, a log- 
house situated about where John Duffield's res- 
idence now is, at the old Elliott nursery. 'He 
afterwards located on the northwest corner of 
the square, and did business there for several 
years. On the site of Bradley's Bank, about 
1850, he built the first brick business house in 
the town or county. He claimed to sell goods 
strictl}' at an advance of twenty-live per cent, 
without regard to the fluctuations of the general 
market. 

The pork produced in this region was packed 
at the Mississippi River towns, and, late in the 
forties, at Keosauqua and other interior points. 
The farmers usually drove their hogs to these 
markets. In the latter years, one or two Bloom- 
field merchants bous^ht hoo:s and drove them to 
the packing points. Alexandria was the prin- 
cipal pork market. Hogs could be marketed at 
onl}' one time in the year — the packing season. 



119 

Some miserable horse-power mills were the 
only chance for grinding short of the Des Moines. 

Settling Into Channels. — The first pork pack- 
ing in the county was done b}- Samuel Steele, at 
Bloomfield, as earl}' as 1849. Steele & Duffield, 
and afterwards George Dut^ield alone, wxre the 
chief pork-packers in times when the pork was 
mostly packed at home — a business to which 
the railroads put an end. Dr. D. C. Greenleaf 
opened the first drug store, about 1850. Leroy 
Hagan was the first hardware merchant. He 
first opened a tin shop at Stringtown, removed it 
to Bloomfield about 1855, and soon afterwards 
branched out into the hardware business. The 
first steam mill was built at Troy, in 1850, by 
Saw3'ers, Goddard & Hinkle. 

The variety of merchandise increased with 
the wants of the people, and the different depart- 
ments were separated. The markets were 
gradually brought more within the reach of the 
producer, and he began to depend upon them 
more for his supplies. While the farmer pro- 
duced a greater variety within his proper line of 
business, he gradually ceased to produce many 
things that did not belong to it. The number 
of non-producers rapidly increased. 



I20 

After the railroads reached Ottiimwa, in 
1859, the merchandise was mostly hauled from 
there in wagons. Freighting b}' team between 
Bloomfield and Ottumwa was a considerable 
business for several years. The people of the 
Nation began to go to the railroad for pine lum- 
ber and other articles which they bought in 
bulk. No lumber yard was established in the 
count}' until after the railroad reached Bloom- 
field. 

High Tide. — The war reconstructed our in- 
stitutions on a larger pattern. In some places, 
the foundations were not enlarged in proportion 
to the structures. Some farmers build their oats 
stacks in that way. They ma}' pile more oats 
on a ten-foot foundation, but they make an ugl}' 
stack, and if a storm unsettles it the ruin is com- 
plete. The business of the Hairy Nation grew 
into such top-heavy shape after the war. 

The war made money plentiful, and prices 
high. The margin of surplus, the real riches, 
was multiplied. The government became a 
great consumer, and the competition among pro- 
ducers was reduced in two ways : one portion of 
the producing countr}' was cut off, and the ranks 
of the producers in the remaining portion were 



121 



thinned. When the soldiers came home, they 
entered into competition with the laborers, pro- 
ducers and traders at home. Those who had 
saved money invested it ; they carried the vig- 
orous war methods into their business ; and ev- 
erything seemed to spin. Under the stimulus of 
the war, men became infatuated with the "get- 
up-and-dust'' idea. The desire to do business 
was unduly elevated above the desire to make a 
home, the only rational personal end of business. 
The increased vigor and activity resulted only in 
a great increase of the volume of transactions; 
those transactions covered but little new ground. 
No thriving industries had been added. 

This flood tide of seeming prosperity cul- 
minated in the town of Bloomfield in a great 
massing of capital in merchandise, and an un- 
exampled era of building in 1874-5. 

The Great (Disaster. — Plenty of money and 
high prices was a good enough plane to stand 
on; it was a bad one to fall from. The govern- 
ment gave the push, without sufficient cause or 
due warning ; and our people, at least, did not 
save themselves. 

The only direct effect of great consequence 
which the panic of 1873 had upon our local 



122 

business was produced b}' the failure of the 
*'Great Western Insurance Company,"" an in- 
stitution in which a number of Bloomiield men 
had invested. Several of them were crippled 
by its collapse. 

The event proved that the great amount of 
building done by the mercantile community of 
Bloomtield was done on a false foundation. As 
it has recently happened again, it proved that 
men were building befoie they were read}-. 
The money put into the buildings was buried 
for a time. Some of the investors never recov- 
ered it. 

The live stock interest had grown to such 
proportions that men began to recognize its 
importance, as an independent business. The 
business was soon overdone in one direction. It 
was not confined closely enough to the natural 
basis of the farm. It grew top-heavy, and there 
was a fall. Of the fifteen or twenty men in the 
county who were engaged chiefly in feeding and 
forwarding stock when the stringency began, a 
small number saw the fall in time to withdraw. 
Of those who continued the business on a falling 
market until the crash came, a few have crawled 
out from under the ruins ; the rest are helping 



123 

to build up the great and growing state of 
Kansas. 

Each of these men, in his fall, helped to pull 
down several other men. Two of the banks, 
being heavy sufferers, and unsound before, failed 
early. In about a year and a-half, fifty -odd 
tirms failed in Bloomtield alone, and several in 
the smaller towns. There was an equal or 
greater number of failures in the farming com- 
munity, involving many men not engaged in side 
speculations. 

At any other time in our history, our people 
w^ould have been enabled, by the sheer product- 
iveness of the soil, to repair as they went the 
loss from any one of these causes ; but an extra- 
ordinary succession of rainy seasons and short 
crops deprived them of this resource. 

To crown all, the magnificent courthouse in 
which the people now take so much pride was 
built in the period of greatest financial distress. 
It is often said that it was built cheaply. It cost 
fewer dollars than it would have cost at another 
time; but they were as hard to get as the Irish- 
man's shillings. 

It is a remarkable testimony to the fertility of 
our agricultural resources that, although fully 



124 

one-fourth of the farms in the county were un- 
der mortgage at this time, a very small propor- 
tion of them were seized. 

(Present and Future. — Our people recovered 
in a great measure from the effects of the panic. 
A recent shortage of crops brought back the 
memories and fears of that calamitous period. 
Nature smiles again, and hope revives. The 
Hairy Nation again seems to be master of its 
own future. What shall the future be.^ 

A taste for luxury seems to have always ac- 
companied civilization in its progress, but wheth- 
er it contributes to the progress or not is doubt- 
ful. Luxury can be supported only b}^ industry. 
Among us, the taste for luxury has grown faster 
than the development of industry. There is too 
much fine merchandise displayed in our stores 
for the number of wheels we are turning and 
the number of holes we are boring in the ground. 
Increased indulgence in luxury makes a tempora- 
ry increase in the volume of some departments of 
trade ; but luxury, without a proper basis in 
healthy industry, will not give permanent 
strength to even a mercantile business. 

Do those who contemplate the investment of 
more capital in merchandise in this county. 



125 

especially in Bloomlield, take into their calcula- 
tions these facts? In the first twenty years after 
the lands of the county were opened to settle- 
ment, its population increased about thirty fold. 
In the succeeding twenty years, to the present 
time, the population increased ten or twelve per 
cent ; a rate which would double it in some- 
thing less than two hundred years. Yet in that 
time the amount of merchandise has certainly 
more than quadrupled. 

During the convalescence succeeding the fi- 
nancial prostration, the citizens of Bloomfield 
organized a board of trade. The efforts of this 
body were heartily seconded by two newspapers 
of the town. It did some good, doubtless, that 
cannot be measured : for instance, a better rep- 
resentation of the credit of the community. Its 
accomplished work was the successful establish- 
ment of a creamery and the fruitless sinking of 
a prospecting shaft for coal. Three other 
creameries have been put into successful opera- 
tion near Pulaski and Drakeville. In the mean- 
time, without any artificial aid, a wagon and 
carriage factory has been founded in Bloomfield, 
and is doing a healthy and prosperous business. 
From a small beginning is slowly and steadily 



126 



growing up a well auger factory that is a real 
credit to the town ; for it is the tirst venture of 
the kind that has proved both honest and suc- 
cessful, after a series of failures and frauds with 
which the good name of the town has been load- 
ed in past years. The head proprietor, John R. 
Davis, is not only the inventor of the machine 
he manufactures, but the most extensive and 
successful inventor of whom the Hairy Nation 
has to boast. 

These are samples of enterprise that brings 
real prosperity. Any new industry whose end 
was to advance towards maturity the raw prod- 
ucts which we now sell too cheaply, or to pro- 
duce anything which we have to buy, would not 
only add to the volume of general business, but 
would give support to the other pursuits. Of 
these classes, there seems to be an especial need 
of such establishments as a manufactory of farm 
implements, a pork-packing house and a canning 
factory. There ought to be a packing-house in 
every county ; and the nearest canning factories 
are at Keokuk, Marshalltown and Indianola; the 
last having at this writing turned out no product. 
All such enterprises have been carried to success 
by communities with less resources than ours. 



127 

Bloomtield has an infant college which is 
growing in popularity and strength. To keep 
up its present rate of growth, measures should 
be taken to give it more room. Our citizens 
should not shrink in discouragement from the 
effort. To a purely business view, the matter 
takes this shape : the hundred and more persons 
whom the school contributes as a continuous 
addition to the population put down here in a 
year nearly twenty thousand dollars of the clean- 
est money that enters into the channels of our 
trade. This money would not come here if the 
managers of the school were not able to adver- 
tise: ''There are no saloons in Bloomfield.'^ 

It is almost certain that most of the surface of 
the county is underlaid with an abundance of 
good coal. Heretofore, it has scarcely been 
mined at all, except by scratching in places into 
the surface measure. Within the past few 
months, a steam shaft has been sunk into the 
second measure, at Laddsdale, on the county 
line, and mining operations are now carried on 
there systematically and extensively. This may 
be considered as the opening of the breach. It 
cannot be long before steam and enterprise will 
break the Rip Van Winkle sleep in which our 



128 



hidden wealth has Iain. Here comes in a new 
problem. Will the count}^ seat share in this 
harvest, and maintain the balance of wealth.'^ 
Or will it all be reaped by towns more favor- 
ably situated, as Floris and Drakeville, just as 
Pulaski is already growing on the production of 
a rich agricultural section.^ Or will new towns 
spring up about the mines, to still further divide 
the business of the county.^ 

If this is speculating too far, it is because the 
chickens are to be hatched by home effort. 
The Hairy Nation has some heavy setters, if 
they only had warmth enough. 



129 



THE NATION IN WAR. 

JNo Indian Wars, — There was never any 
war or bloodshed between the people of the 
Hairy Nation and their Indian neighbors. 

The (Boundary War. — When Iowa was born 
as a territory, in 1838, she inherited, through 
her mother, the Territory of Wisconsin, from 
her grandmother, the Territory of Michigan, a 
family dispute concerning the boundary between 
her patrimony (or matrimony?) and the domain 
of Missouri. The question was whether the 
eastern terminus, defined as '^the Des Moines 
Rapids,^' was the rapids of the Des Moines, be- 
low Keosauqua, or the "Des Moines Rapids'' of 
the Mississippi, above Keokuk. When we rec- 
ollect that a question of priority as to the right 
to temporarily occupy a strip of the highway 
for the cultivation of a hedge, or the twisting of 
the sections half a rod diamond-wise by the gov- 



ernment surveyors has often caused irreconcil- 
able enmities between neighbors hereabouts, we 
need not wonder that two states, governed en- 
tirely by men, should quarrel over a triangle of 
fertile land, nine miles across the base and more 
than two hundred miles long. 

The eastern border counties of Missouri as- 
sessed taxes upon the settlers on the '^disputed 
strip.'^ Their sheriffs attempted to collect these 
taxes, and in many cases levied upoa the prop- 
erty of delinquents. In the prosecution of this 
duty, they were in some cases arrested by Iowa 
officers. The governors of Missouri and low^a 
called out their militia to support their respect- 
ive claims. Five hundred Iowa militia camped 
on the border of Van Buren county, ready for 
hostilities. But the time for actual war between 
Iowa and Missouri had not yet come. Nego- 
tiations were opened, and it w^as agreed to settle 
the matter by a lawsuit ; a resort less blood}' 
than war, though generall}' more expensive. B}' 
an act of Congress, the case was finally submit- 
ted to the Supreme Court of the United States, 
and decided in favor of Iowa. H. B. Hender- 
shott on the part of Iowa, and Wm. G. Miner 
on the part of Missouri, were appointed commis- 



sioners to survey and establish the boundary. 
The line was marked by iron posts, set ten miles 
apart. Since then, the delinquent tax-payers of 
the disputed strip have had only one sheriff to 
dodge. This dispute was prolonged through 
nearly the whole of Iowa''s territorial existence. 
There were some curious facts and incidents 
connected with this war. Samuel and Jonathan 
Riggs were cousins, and Hved near each other, 
south of Bloomtield, on the disputed strip. In 
1844-6, Samuel was sheriff of this county. Du- 
ring a part or all of the same time, Jonathan 
was sheriff of Schuyler county, Missouri. Sam- 
uel was at one time arrested by Jonathan, and 
arraigned before a Missouri justice, on a charge 
of unlawfully distraining the property of a cit- 
izen of Missouri. Afterwards, Jonathan was 
arrested by Samuel, and prosecuted in the Iowa 
courts on a charge of holding an office in the 
service of Missouri while residing within the 
jurisdiction of Iowa. The prosecution was 
never carried to a conclusion, but he suffered 
imprisonment for about two months. For this 
devotion to the cause of that state, the legis- 
lature of Missouri voted him the sum of two 
hundred dollars. 



132 

As this is not a histor}', I am not restrained 
from relating the story of two old women who 
were discussing the boundary question with all 
the sageness of two Mrs. Spoopendykes. One 
said : '^I do hope it won't fall to Missouri, for 
Missouri's so sickly." ''Well," said the other, 
after a few reflective drafts from her pipe, "1 
do' know ; they could al'ays raise wheat in Mis- 
souri." The accident of birth (if it was an ac- 
cident in their cases,) had left these two good 
old souls no voice in the arbitrament ; but let 
the decree be what it might, they could accept 
it with a truly Christian resignation. The con- 
sequences expected by these two old ladies from 
an attachment to either state were whimsical: 
but we lowans, and as we think all others but a 
few loyally blind Missourians, can now see that 
the dwellers on that tract have substantial reas- 
ons to thank the fortune that cast their lot with 
this more liberal and progressive commonwealth. 

The Mexican War. — The Hairy Nation was 
young when the Mexican war began. It sent 
no organized bodies of troops to the war. Half 
a dozen or so of its citizens enlisted in two com- 
panies of Iowa volunteers which were mustered 
into service at Burlington, some time after the 



133 

war began. They took part in the bloody 
march from Vera Cruz to the City of Mexico. 
One of those volunteers, at least, is still a citizen 
of the Nation, and draws a pension on account 
of a wound received in that service. 

Our (Boys in (Dixie. — The Hairy Nation 
made its mark and received its share of scars 
in the war of the rebellion. It furnished nearly 
eight hundred soldiers. It was represented by 
Company G, Second Iowa Infantry ; Compan}' 
B and most of Company F, Thirtieth Infantry ; 
Company D, Forty-Fifth Infantry (hundred 
days) ; Companies A and E and part of Com- 
pany D, Third Cavalry ; Company D, Tenth 
Missouri Infantr}' ; and by from one to thirty- 
men in other companies ; principally in the 
Fourteenth, Fifteenth, Nineteenth and Thirty- 
Sixth Iowa Infantry ; Seventh, Eighth and 
Ninth Cavalry; Twenty-First Missouri Infantry; 
Seventh Missouri Cavalry; and Second Cavalry, 
Missouri State Militia. 

Part of the Second Infantry, including Com- 
pany G, stormed the works at Fort Donelson. 
The regiment distinguished itself at Shiloh; at 
the battle of Corinth, October 3d and 4th, 1862; 
at Resaca, Kenesaw and other battles in the 



Atlanta campaign ; and in many other engage- 
ments. It proved itself one of the bravest and 
^best regiments in the Union service. The 
Third Ca\alry was its peer. One of the most 
important movements in the battle of Pea Ridge 
was the gallant charge of its first battalion on 
the nth. This and the charge at Donelson are 
among the most distinguished acts of bravery in 
the war. The Third engaged in the Vicksburg 
campaign ; the Mississippi campaigns of 1864; 
Pleasanton's campaign against Price, in Missou- 
ri ; Grierson's raid through Mississippi ; and in 
various other services. The Thirtieth partic- 
ipated in Sherman's Vicksburg campaign ; took 
the most distinguished part in the capture of 
Arkansas Post ; was in the sies^e of Vicksburof; 
in the battles of Corinth and luka, in 1863; and 
through Sherman's Georgia campaigns. 

Many individual representatives of the Nation 
distinguished themselves in the war. Cyrus 
Bussey, first Colonel of the Third Cavalry, was 
promoted to be Brigadier General. H. H.. 
Trimble, Lieutenant Colonel, led the charge at 
Pea Ridge. His face bears the scar of a ter- 
rible wound received there from a Minie ball. 
George Duffield, first Captain of Company E, 



^35 

was promoted to be Major. James Baker en- 
tered the Second Infantry as Captain of Com- 
pany G ; became Lieutenant Colonel November 
2d, 1861; Colonel, June 22d, 1862; commanded 
the regiment at Shiloh, and at Corinth, October, 
1862 ; was killed at the latter battle. James B. 
Weaver entered the Second as First Lieutenant 
of Company G; became Major July 25th, 1862; 
Colonel after the battle of Corinth ; and after- 
wards brevet Brigadier General. S. A. Moore 
entered the Second as Second Lieutenant of 
Company G ; was Captain in command of the 
compan}' in the charge at Donelson ; was des- 
perately wounded at Shiloh ; was Captain of 
Company G, Forty-Fifth Infantry ; afterwards 
Lieutenant Colonel. The limit of the volume 
draws an arbitrary line. 

Invasion. — On October 12, 1864, a band of 
twelve mounted guerrillas made a circuit through 
the southern part of the county ; entering near 
the southeast corner, and going out near the 
southwest. The}' robbed nearh' every person 
or house that came in their way. The}' killed 
Thomas Hardy, a wealthy farmer, as he sat on 
his wagon, near his house. A little farther on, 
they killed Eleazar Small, a furloughed soldier 



i.?6 

of the Third Cavalry. They took a number of 
prisoners along their route. x\t the line, they 
released all these, except Capt. Philip H. Bence, 
of Company F, Thirtieth Infantr}^ whom they 
killed. Bence lived at Springville, and the two 
other men killed within two miles of that place. 
The manner of the killing of all three was pe- 
culiarly atrocious. A large body of militia pur- 
-sued this band, without effect. This raid cre- 
ated such consternation that for two days people 
living within a few miles of its course believed 
that the county had been invaded by a force of 
several hundred rebels. The belief still prevails 
in the section visited by these raiders that they 
were piloted by a man who knew the country. 
November 7th, 1S64, Captain West, a rebel 
recruiting officer, with five others, entered the 
county. That night, West and a companion 
stopped at the house of Martin Gore, west of 
Troy. William Wallace, his son John R., and 
Thomas Dulfield entered the house to arrest 
them. The rebels opened fire, killed William 
Wallace, wounded John several times, knocked 
])utfield down, and escaped. In 1869, West 
was arrested in Missouri by Sheriff Daniel Brad- 
bury, tried for murder, and acquitted. 



137 



POLITICS. 

(Parties. — The Democrats held sway in the 
Hairy Nation in the early days. The Know 
Nothings carried the election of 1855; then the 
county returned to its former allegiance. Party 
lines were not closely drawn in the election of 
local officers until the struggle between the Re- 
publican and Democratic parties began. The 
largest party gathering ever held in the county- 
was the two-days ^'Douglas camp-meeting," in 
August, i860. About six thousand persons 
were present on the first day. The Republican 
party gained the ascendency in 1863. The 
Grange movement, in 1873, rapidly acquired 
great strength here. Ax. the Grange picnic on 
the Fair Grounds, October 9th, 1873, thirty 
granges were represented, and about six thou- 
sand persons were present. The movement was 
insensibly transformed into the Anti-Monopoly 



138 

movement, and that into the Democratic party: 
and thus the latter, by degrees, returned to pow- 
er. It was hardly reseated before it was dis- 
turbed by the Greenback party ; which in 1879 
became strong enough to elect some officers, and 
afterwards carried the count}'. Since that year, 
the three parties have stood, relatively, in this 
order : Greenback, Democratic, Republican. 

Officers. — The first list of county officers has 
been given. The offices of Treasurer and Re- 
corder were united in 1847, W. S. Stevens be- 
ing the incumbent. They were separated again 
in 1864. A. H. Hill was elected Recorder in 
that year, and R. T. Peak Treasurer in 1865. 
In 1847, ^* ^- Carpenter was elected first Pros- 
ecuting Attorney, and Wm. Cameron first Clerk 
of the District Court. In 1868, A. H. Hill, 
District Clerk, became also Clerk of the newly 
established Circuit Court. In 1851, the Inspect- 
orship of Weights and Measures was abolished; 
and the Probate Judgeship (J. I. Earhart) and 
the system of three Commissioners gave place 
to the Count}' Judgeship (H. W. Briggs) and 
the County Supervisorship (one term — John Al- 
len). In 1869, Wm. Van Benthusen, last County 
Judge, became first Auditor. In i860, a Board 



of Supervisors, consisting of one member from 
c.ich township, was elected. The members 
were : J. D. Dunlavy, Wm, Van Benthusen, 
Henry Hudgens, James Hamilton, John H, 
Drake, George Duffield, David Ferguson, J. L 
Earhart, Hugh Aberneth}^, W. E. Brown, Wm, 
Fortune, Wm. Evans, John Newton, J. M. Sloan. 
In 1870, this S3'stem gave place to that of three 
Supervisors ; and J. P. Fortune, John Edwards 
and W. S. Monroe were elected. Harvey A. 
Sloan was elected first School Fund Commis 
sioner, in 1850 ; and Harvey Dunlavy tirst Su 
perintendent of Schools, in 1858. Present of 
licers : S. B. Downing, Representative ; F. W 
Moore, Clerk ; W. S. Stevens, Auditor; M. M 
Boyer, Treasurer ; J. W. Pirtle, Sheriff ; A. C 
Lester, Recorder; J. C. Dooley, Superintendent 
Albert Power, D. Swinney and E. A. Duck 
worth. Supervisors ; P. I. Kinsinger, Surveyor; 
E. J. Shelton, Coroner. 

(Public Men. — S. W. McAtee spent more 
years in public service than any other man in 
our history. He was one of the first Commis* 
ioners, four years Sheriff, eight years County 
Judge, and held various other public trusts. I. 
Kister was Recorder 1844-6, and State Treas- 



140 

urer 1850-2, besides other public service. J. J., 
Selman was President of the State Senate 1848, 
member 1858, candidate for Congress 1856. 
S. A. Moore was County Judge 1855, State 
Senator 1863, candidate for other places, latel}' 
Postmaster at Bloomfield. H. H. Trimble was 
District Attorney 1852, State Senator 1856, 
District Judge 1862, since candidate for Su- 
preme Judge, District Judge, Congress and Go\ - 
ernor. J. B. Weaver was District Attorney 
1866, Congressman 1878, candidate for Pres- 
ident 1880, for Congress 1882. D. P, Palmer 
was State Senator 1852, delegate to state con- 
stitutional convention 1856, since candidate for 
Representative. H. C. Traverse was Represent- 
ative 1865, State Senator 1867 and 1879, Cir- 
cuit Judge 1880. J. A. T. Hull was Secretary 
of State Senate four terms, now in his third term 
as Secretary of State. In 1878, the Nation fur- 
nished J. B. Weaver, candidate for Congress, and 
J. A. T. Hull and T. O. Walker, for Secretary 
of State ; 1879, Trimble for Governor, M. H. 
Jones for Supreme Judge, Traverse and Walker 
for State Senator; 1882, Hull and Walker again 
for Secretary, Weaver for Congress, and Samuel 
Jones elected District Attorney. 



141 



THE PRESS. 

May, 13, 1854, Geo. W. Johnson issued the 
first newspaper in the count}', the Gazette, a six- 
cohimn paper. It was afterwards changed- to 
the (Radiator, by Rev. J. B. Bowen ; again, to 
Ober's Trite Flag, by Harry Ober. In 1856, 
J. B. Bowen issued the Weekly Union, and after- 
wards the (Davis County (Democrat. He was 
succeeded by Wm. G. Ward, as pubhsher of 
Ward's Own, and afterwards of the Iowa Flag, 
For a time, about 1857, Hosea B. Horn, an able 
writer and the first historian of the Hairy Na- 
tion, pubHshed the (Davis County Index. In 
1858, the (Democratic Clarion was started by 
A. P. Bentley and Amos Steckel. In 1861, 
they sold it to W. G. Ward ; a sweet singer, 
but a poor, though persevering publisher. It 
suspended in 1863, was revived by Barr & Ham- 
lin, and died in 1864. In 1863, the Union Guard 



142 

was started by a stock compan}' ; A. M. Karns 
being publisher, and M. H. Jones and S. A. 
Moore, and afterwards J, B. Weaver, editors. 
In 1866, it passed into the hands of H. II. Jones 
and C. II. Young. In 1868, E. T. White pur- 
chased it, changed its name to (Davis County 
(R^epuhlican , and put in a power press. No 
paper before this had been larger than six col- 
umns. J. A. T. Hull bought the ^Republican in 
May, 1873. C. B. Whitford was associated with 
him for most of 1876. A. H. Fortune entered 
the firm in May, 1877. By lease, John J. Ham- 
ilton succeeded Hull as editor and publisher in 
1879. A. H. Fortune conducted the paper for a 
few months past. Hull & Fortune are now own- 
ers. Fortune & Heizer publishers, E. P. Heizer 
editor. T. O. Walker started the (Bloomfield 
(Democrat in September, 1869; lately sold it to 
H. C. Evans and J. F. Mounts. J. B. King re- 
moved the Grangers' Advocate here from Moul- 
ton late in 1873. August, 1874, F. W. Moore 
and Will Van Benthusen converted it into The 
Commonwealth, an independent Republican pa- 
per. I purchased Mr. Van Benthusen's interest. 
May 3d, 1876; and leased Mr. Moore ^s interest, 
March 20th, 1877. Under Moore & Ethell, the 



M3 

paper espoused the Greenback cause, in August, 
1876. About June, 15th, 1878, I was succeed- 
ed in the control of the paper by Dr. E. J. Shel- 
ton, 'who changed the name to Legal Tender 
Greenback. A few da3's afterwards, he sold it 
to C. F. Davis, who still conducts it. From 
March, 1875, to February, 1876, Richard B. B. 
Wood, who has done better journalistic work, 
published the Drakeville Sun,' a three-column 
sheet, the only paper ever published in the coun- 
ty, outside of Bloomtield. The Odd Fellows' 
(Banner was started in 1875, by J. B. King ; S. 
H. Glenn was afterwards associated ; circulation 
reached six thousand; removed to Cedar Rapids 
early in 1878. The Teacher at Work was con- 
ducted by Prof. A. Axline for a while in 1876. 
The (People's Monthly Journal, an advertising 
paper, was published by Mitchell Brothers, 1878- 
80. In company at first with L. A. and Geo. A. 
Morgan, I published The (Bloomfield Mercury, 
June 19th to October 3d, 1879. The (Democrat 
first used ''patent outsides," in 1872. Before 
May 2 1st, 1878, all three newspapers were using 
them. On that date. The Commonwealth dis- 
carded them ; the (Republican soon after. The 
(Republican first used steam; the Greenback later. 



144 



APOLOGIES. 

Here, if anywhere, is the place for an apology. 
The reader knows now what need there is of it. 

I regret that my time and means were so lim- 
ited that I could not make this book larger, and 
print the names of more people in its beautiful 
large type. I regret the mistakes I have made, 
and the others which the reader will find ; tax 
them all to haste. I regret, especially, a small 
injustice which I have, in forgetfulness, done to 
an absent man. If any man feels aggrieved, let 
him accept this apology; if the right man apply, 
I will make amends. I hope the book will find 
a thousand critics who will have the right to 
criticise. When I make another book, which 
I expect to do soon, I hope I shall be able to do 
better. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




016 093 337 9 # 



